The War of Ice and Fire
by Icefire177
Summary: Jon Snow is King in the North, Daenerys is sailing to Westeros to reclaim her birthright, Cersei is styling herself Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, Baelish is plotting, Arya is somewhere in the Riverlands, and the Long Night and the War with the White Walkers draws ever closer... this is my version of how events could play out in the wars to come. (Diverges from canon after season 6.)
1. The Small Council: Jaime I

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 **The War of Ice and Fire**

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 _My take on how the story might play out after the events of Game of Thrones season 6. Written before season 7 aired. Mostly based on the TV show, but with some ideas taken from the books instead (e.g. Ser Barristan is still alive in this story. I know he died in the TV show, but he's still alive in the books… as of 'A Dance with Dragons', anyway. So I decided to go with that. Also, Euron Greyjoy has the dragon horn, there were three Kingsguard at the Tower of Joy, and all the Stark children can warg (though Bran is of course the most powerful warg and the only one who's actually been trained to use that ability.))_

 _Disclaimer, I do not own Game of Thrones (obviously, or I wouldn't be writing fan fiction about it.)_

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 **Chapter 1: The Small Council**

 **Jaime I**

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The Small Council seemed to have been reduced to just the three of them, Jaime thought, tapping the fingers of his left hand on the table as he listened to Qyburn, the chainless maester, who seemed to have taken Varys' place as Master of Whisperers with great ease.

Aside from Jaime and Qyburn, the only other person at the table was Cersei, who had recently had herself crowned as the Queen of Westeros. Anyone who might have objected to that only had to take one look at her intimidating giant of a guard, the one that used to be Gregor Clegane, to fall silent again. That man… or whatever he was now, was currently stationed behind Cersei's chair, his back to the wall. Jaime wasn't entirely sure where the rest of Cersei's Queensguard were, or even if she still actually had seven of them, or if she'd had the rest killed off or dismissed. Clegane seemed to be the only one she kept with her at all times these days. Well, Clegane and the little grey rat, Qyburn.

But the state of Cersei's Queensguard wasn't really Jaime's concern right now. No, he was more worried about what she'd recently done to the Sept of Baelor.

Destroying the Sept with Wildfire… the last time a monarch had planned to use wildfire in that manner, Jaime had killed him. But this was Cersei, not Aerys. And Cersei… well, she hadn't destroyed the _entire_ city, he told himself, but what she had done still sickened him.

And it had resulted in the death of their son, Tommen, a sweet and innocent boy who had thrown himself from the Red Keep in despair, after realising that his wife was dead.

Jaime had confronted Cersei about that.

"How was I to know that he'd do something like that?" she'd said, genuine tears in her eyes and her voice catching in her throat. "He was our baby boy, Jaime, our only remaining child. I just wanted to protect him. I just wanted to keep him safe from that harlot and those fanatics." Her voice hardened as rage filled her eyes. "What mother wouldn't do the same? They all had their claws in him. _My child_. They all wanted to use him for their own purposes. Pushing and pulling and twisting him to be what _they_ wanted. I just wanted to get him back. I just wanted to keep him safe from them. I never imagined he would take that Tyrell girl's death so badly. How could I have known?"

Her grief was genuine, that much Jaime was certain of. So, for the time being, he hadn't told her just how disgusted and horrified he'd been by her actions… but neither had he stepped forward to embrace her, as he would have done in the past. Instead, he left her alone with her grief, sobbing on the floor of her chambers.

And Jaime was left alone with his own grief. He'd never been a father to Tommen, but still, the boy had been his son. And although Jaime couldn't exactly say he was proud of the boy, he could say that he wouldn't have felt ashamed of protecting him, which seemed to put Tommen a step above most of the other kings Jaime had seen in his time.

Of course, Tommen had dismissed Jaime from the Kingsguard, so protecting him was no longer his job anyway, even if the boy had still been alive.

Jaime clenched his left hand into a fist. He looked at Cersei, with her short golden hair, green eyes and elegant demeanour. At least he could say that destroying the Sept with wildfire didn't seem to excite her the way that burning people alive had excited Aerys. Or, at least, he hoped it hadn't… but if it _had_ , she wasn't still excited about it by the time Jaime had returned to the Red Keep.

Jaime wondered what he would have done if he had been there when she'd given the order. Could he have stopped her, as he'd once stopped Aerys? The point was moot, since he _hadn't_ been there, but what if she decided to do it again? Aerys had set up caches of wildfire all over the city, and Jaime had told both of his siblings about it. Tyrion had used that knowledge to help them win the battle of Blackwater Bay. Cersei had used that knowledge to destroy the sept when it was filled with people.

If she decided to do it again, blow up another of Aerys' secret caches of wildfire… what would he do?

Did he have it in him to kill his own sister and lover? The mother of his children? Is that what it would come down to, in the end?

He didn't, as of yet, have an answer.

He turned his attention to what Qyburn was saying. Something about the North.

"Well," the chainless maester said, "if you recall, we had a report that Jon Snow led the Night's Watch in the defence of the Wall when an army of wildlings attacked in force, and his men were so impressed with his command skills that they named him Lord Commander, when the time to vote came."

"Yes," Cersei said dismissively, "we know all about that. They took leave of their senses and ignored our suggestion to appoint Lord Janos Slynt, and instead chose a teenage bastard boy." She took a sip of wine. "But at the end of the day, the Night's Watch is just a band of murderers, thieves and rapers sentenced to live at the far north of the realm, far out of our way, so what does it matter who they choose to lead them? Did you have a point?"

"I did, Your Grace," Qyburn continued. "The point is that we have recently discovered that after these events, it seems that Lord Commander Snow somehow managed to make the same wildlings that attacked the Wall into his allies. They now fight for him, and are loyal to him. The Night's Watch and the wildlings together."

Well that didn't sound right. "The Night's Watch are meant to _fight_ the wildlings," Jaime said. "What are they supposed to be protecting the realm from otherwise? Or are they just going to sit up at the Wall together comparing stories on frostbite and fur capes?"

Qyburn looked at the piece of paper in front of him, suddenly seeming uncertain. "Well, they… the report states… that they are allied against a far greater threat… the White Walkers."

Cersei snorted and almost choked on her wine, before putting the glass down. She had one hand on her chest, above her breasts. Her coughing changed into laughter, and Jaime couldn't help but smile. "So they're telling each other stories about imaginary monsters then," he said.

Qyburn shrugged. "I suppose so." He looked to Cersei. "Your Grace, shall I continue?"

Cersei waved a hand. "Please do. Let us hear all about the imaginary troubles of the brave men at the Wall at the end of the world."

"Actually, Your Grace, Jon Snow is no longer at the Wall."

"He deserted then?"

"Well… it seems that some of the men of the Night's Watch disapproved of his allying with wildlings, and letting them move south of the Wall–"

"He let the wildlings past the Wall?" Jaime asked.

"Yes, thousands of them." Qyburn confirmed.

"Well, I imagine they're giving the Northerners a great deal of trouble, now that there's nothing to stop those savages raiding their villages," Cersei said, picking up her wine glass again. "Do the Northern lords know who's responsible for letting the wildlings through? Perhaps they'll kill the bastard for us and someone more suitable will be named Lord Commander next time."

"He already has been killed, Your Grace," Qyburn said.

"Ah, excellent," Cersei replied. "Always good to hear that another of the Stark brood has been eliminated, though that little bitch Sansa is still alive, last we heard, isn't she?"

"Yes, Your Grace. She is."

"Damn." Cersei's wine glass was empty, so she refilled it from the pitcher on the table in front of her. She seemed to be drinking a lot more than she used to, Jaime noticed. "Who killed off her bastard brother in the end? Do we know?"

"It was his own men, Your Grace. The ones who took exception to his alliance with the wildlings. They apparently set up an ambush and stabbed him to death."

"Hmm," Cersei responded, as though that information were mildly interesting, but not of great importance. She took another sip of wine.

"And then he came back to life and hanged those men for treason," Qyburn continued.

Cersei paused with the wine glass halfway to her lips.

"I'm sorry… He did _what_?" Jaime said, wondering if he had misheard.

"He was dead, for a period of several hours. He died from multiple knife wounds to the chest and was cold to the touch. And then he came back to life and hanged his own murderers for treason," Qyburn told them.

Cersei blinked at him.

"Well, I'm bloody glad that Aerys didn't do that when I stabbed _him._ " Jaime said, wondering whether this 'resurrection' story or the tales of 'white walkers' was the more ridiculous. Though he supposed that, in the end, it didn't really matter. Both tales were clearly absurd. "What in Seven Hells are they drinking up there at the Wall?"

"There is more," Qyburn said.

"By all means, do tell us what happened next," Cersei said, putting the wine glass down and leaning back in her seat, giving Qyburn her undivided attention.

"After that, it seems his half-sister Sansa showed up at the Wall, and then together they built up an army consisting of wildlings and a small number of Northern houses –"

"Sansa?" Cersei spat, leaning forward in her seat. "So, the little bitch is at the Wall now, is she?"

"Well… she _was_ , Your Grace," Qyburn said. "But then she and her brother took their army to attack Lord Bolton at Winterfell, and with some timely support from the Knights of the Vale, under the command of Lord Baelish –"

"Baelish?"

"Yes, it seems he's openly declared himself and the Vale as being in support of the Starks, Your Grace."

"That slimy little two-faced prick."

"Yes, Your Grace. In any case, there was a battle, and the Stark forces prevailed. Ramsay Bolton, who became our new Warden of the North after his father was poisoned by his enemies, tried to retreat back to Winterfell, but unfortunately…" he trailed off.

Jaime and Cersei waited.

"What?" Cersei demanded when Qyburn didn't immediately continue.

Qyburn looked up and met the queen's gaze.

"Well, according to _several_ eye witnesses, so this is not something we can disregard," Qyburn said, "Jon Snow now has giants fighting for him."

There was a pause.

"By 'giants', I assume you mean big men like Gregor Clegane?" Jaime clarified, looking at the huge, silent guard still standing behind Cersei's chair.

Qyburn looked at Jaime. "No, the reports say that when Lord Ramsay Bolton retreated to Winterfell and sealed the gates, he hoped to defeat the enemy because they did not have the men to mount a siege. But just moments later… well, a giant fighting for Jon Snow succeeded in bursting through the gates. This giant was said to have been several times the size of a human man, and strong enough to rip apart the gates with his bare hands. And he had so many arrows in him that he resembled a pin cushion. Yet he was still moving and fighting. And once he'd broken through the gates, the rest of Jon Snow's army followed."

Qyburn glanced at his notes again. "Lord Ramsay did manage to kill the giant in the end, by shooting it directly in the eye, but by then, Jon Snow's army was already pouring through the gates. Ramsay Bolton bravely entered into single combat with Jon Snow in a last attempt to win the battle, but was defeated. House Bolton has been completely destroyed, and the North is once again united, with the wildlings, the Night's Watch and all the remaining Northern houses all allied together."

"Surely someone has a problem with wildlings south of the Wall raiding their villages?" Jaime asked. "I can't see the Northern houses being happy about that. Using the wildlings to increase the size of their army in battle might make sense in the short term, but actually living with them on their land?"

"Well," Qyburn said, "from what we've heard, the wildlings are no longer raiding the Northern villages at all but living on land granted to them by Jon Snow… whom the Northern houses have all named as their new King."

"King?" Cersei said, outraged.

"King in the North, Your Grace. And he has the unanimous support, as I said, of all of the North, and the Vale."

Why was it that as soon as one king was dealt with, another popped up to take his place? Jaime sighed. "I don't suppose there's any good news?" he asked.

Qyburn hesitated.

"Oh, out with it," Cersei commanded. "Just tell us and get it over with."

"Well," Qyburn said, "this doesn't pertain to the North, Your Grace, but it's still ill news."

" _What?_ " Cersei demanded.

"You recall the news we had about Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons?"

"The girl had three baby dragons and some Unsullied and set herself up as the Queen of Meereen. What of it?"

"Well, the dragons are no longer babies. The Targaryen girl has actually taken to riding one of them, just as her ancestors did. She used all three of them to destroy the combined efforts of the Good Masters of Slaver's Bay to oust her from power –"

"We were helping to fund their efforts, weren't we?"

"Er… well, we _considered_ it, Your Grace. Only if you remember, you decided in the end that our finances would be better spent building your new warships –"

"Ah, yes, of course. And how is that going? Are the ships ready yet?"

"Almost, Your Grace. Although as we're speaking of funds, you should know that the Iron Bank is still demanding repayment of the money the Crown owes them –"

"They just don't give up, do they? I've told them before; they will have their repayments begin again once the throne is secure. Right now, we need the money more than they do."

"The Iron Bank does not see things that way, Your Grace. They have called in _every_ loan given to everyone under your domain, and are refusing further loans to all who ask. It's creating some problems for both lords and merchants in Westeros. A number of the merchants have already left to move overseas –"

"I'm not interested in the troubles of merchants or lesser lords. We need the money to fund our wars. And with the North in open rebellion again, we shall have to march or sail north and deal with them, sooner rather than later."

Jaime had to intervene then. "Sister, if you don't mind me saying so, that is a terrible idea."

Cersei looked at him. "Terrible? In what way?"

"Don't you remember the lessons Father taught us? A southern army cannot conquer the North, they never have. Not during the Andal invasion, not even during the dragon Conquest. The North has _never_ been taken by a southern army. The only way to defeat them is to wait for _their_ army to march south and meet us on our own ground. _Then_ they can be defeated."

Cersei considered for a moment. "You're right, brother." She smiled at him. Then she reached for more wine. "Of course I remember the lessons Father taught us. But what if Jon Snow doesn't march his army south? I cannot simply allow him to keep half my kingdom from me."

"With respect, Your Grace, you do have bigger problems," Qyburn said. "And in any case, the Citadel recently sent white ravens to announce the start of winter. I'm no military strategist, but trying to defeat the Northern army on their own ground during winter… it would seem to be folly, even with my lack of experience in such matters."

"Yes, yes, I've already agreed. But the point is that we still need to do something about it. I cannot allow the North to declare independence and simply do nothing."

"They're unlikely to march anywhere now that winter has set in," Jaime said. "I say we let them be until spring. If they do decide to march south, we can deal with them then." Cersei looked like she was going to interrupt, but Jaime turned to Qyburn, and continued before she could. "You said that we have bigger problems. Do you just mean the Iron Bank, or is there something else? I imagine the remaining Tyrells are rather angry right now. Does our intelligence suggest they're marshalling their forces against us?" He glanced at Cersei, but she was examining her wine goblet.

Qyburn looked between them, before settling his gaze on his notes again. He shuffled the papers around a bit, then cleared his throat. "Yes, as I was saying, Daenerys Targaryen. She has three dragons, thousands of Unsullied, and has recently defeated the Masters' attempts to oust her from power. She took possession of all their ships, the ones she did not destroy, at least, and has also acquired one hundred thousand Dothraki to add to her army."

"But they're still in Essos, are they not? As long as they stay there, I'd still say that the North is the bigger problem," Cersei insisted. She bared her teeth. "And that little bitch Sansa still needs to pay for what she did to Joffrey."

"Daenerys Targaryen does have the fleet that Good Masters of Slaver's Bay brought to Meereen," Qyburn reminded them. "It may well be enough for her to bring her army across the ocean to Westeros. And if she does…" he trailed off again.

"We must make sure our own fleet is ready to meet her if she does," Jaime said. "Preferably whilst they're still at sea. One hundred thousand Dothraki on ships aren't too much of a threat, but once they make landfall and start riding around the country, raiding, raping and killing, that's an entirely different matter."

"Funny that," a stranger's voice interrupted. "I was thinking just about the same thing."

Everyone turned to face the door to the Small Council chambers, stunned by the interruption.

Jaime got to his feet and placed his left hand on the pommel of his sword. He was still nowhere near as skilled at swordplay as he had been when he still had his right hand, but he could at least hold his own against most men in a straight fight, which was far more than he could have said a few months ago.

He regarded the strange man warily, as the intruder strode confidently into the room. He had pale skin and brown hair and beard, scruffy, salt stained clothes and a breastplate bearing the arms of House Greyjoy, a kraken. He also had an eyepatch over his left eye.

How had an Iron Islands pirate managed to get past the guards?

"Who are you?" Cersei demanded. "How did you get in here?"

The intruder walked forward as though to sit and join them at the small council meeting. "You need to invest in more effective guards, I'm afraid. Don't worry, I killed off the ones I found outside, so there's a room for a few new, better ones, if you can find them." Jaime drew his sword and stepped forward to intercept him.

The intruder smirked, but didn't come any closer. "The one-handed Kingslayer. You any good with that other hand? Or are you just posturing in the hopes that I'll back down faced with such a fearsome reputation," he said mockingly.

"Try me and find out," Jaime said. "Are you sure you can see well enough with that one eye?"

The intruder removed his eye patch, revealing a second, perfectly good eye. _So why was he wearing an eyepatch?_ Jaime wondered.

The intruder looked past Jaime to Cersei. "Euron Greyjoy, Your Grace," he said, with a slight, mocking bow. "King of the Iron Islands. Here to suggest an alliance between our two Great Houses. From what I've heard, whilst standing outside listening to your troubles being listed by this drab grey mouse here," he indicated Qyburn with a wave of his hand, "you could surely use the help. And I could surely use the ships and men you could add to my cause."

"Your cause?" Cersei sputtered, rising to her feet. "Why should I wish to ally myself with a filthy pirate and a pretender?"

"Because it sounds like you have enough enemies already. And I think if we work together, we can bring down the little Targaryen girl's army before they reach the shores of Westeros." He sauntered past Jaime then, and sprawled carelessly in the chair at the opposite end of the table from Cersei.

"Personally," Euron continued, "I like to be the one doing the plundering, and if the Dothraki manage to get here, there'll be a lot less plundering for the rest of us." He paused. "Actually, I had figured on joining the Dragon Queen myself and offering her my ships and my…uhm… my _hand_ in marriage, so that we could come over to the Seven Kingdoms and crush the lot of you. Unfortunately, my treacherous niece and nephew have gone and screwed up those plans." He scowled. "They stole most of the Iron Fleet and sailed off to Slaver's Bay themselves, with a few other Ironborn that didn't like the idea of my rule. They'll have joined their fleet to the Targaryen girl's now, and that means the Dragon Queen will most definitely have enough ships to bring her army over. So, the way I figure, if the two of us combine our forces and meet them while they're still at sea, we can crush the Targaryen _and_ my niece and nephew out there. What do you say?"

Cersei looked conflicted.

"What about the girl's dragons?" Jaime asked.

Euron Greyjoy smiled, as though this was exactly the question he wanted them to ask. "Funny you should ask that," he said. "You ever heard of a dragon horn?"

Jaime exchanged a confused look with Cersei.

"I have," Qyburn said. "Briefly, anyway, it's supposedly a large magical horn that can be used to control dragons, but likely either a myth, or else lost with Valyria centuries ago."

Euron nodded. "The thing is, I've spent the last several years sailing around the known world, and I've picked up a few things in my travels. It just so happens that one of those things is a dragon horn. A real one. And I know the secret of how to use it. The Dragon Queen won't expect that, so during the battle between our fleets, she'll probably send out her dragons to crush us. And that's when I'll bind them to my will and have them help us destroy her fleet instead. And before you think it, no, I won't tell you how it works, and you can't kill me or threaten me and get it for yourselves. My guards are outside now, and we'll have a nasty bloodbath if your people try anything." He leaned back in his chair. "So, are we allies, or not?"

"I have a question," Jaime said. "If you have some magical horn that will supposedly make the dragons obey you and destroy the Targaryen fleet, what do you need us for?" He didn't really believe such a thing existed, but then he was also a little sceptical about the dragons themselves, although they were a known creature that certainly had existed once, so he was more inclined to believe they were real, at least.

Greyjoy smiled at him. "Because, as you pointed out, it's a _magical_ horn that _supposedly_ controls dragons. I know how it works, but it's not as though I've had the chance to actually test it on a dragon before. I have no idea if it'll work as it's supposed to, or if there'll be a delay before the dragons are controlled. So we'll need a large, well-armed and well-manned fleet on our side. I'd really rather not sail up to the Dragon Queen by myself, blow that horn and just hope it all works out. But if you'd rather reject my offer of an alliance, I suppose I could always make that the backup plan. Though in that case, I will reserve the right to fry the lot of you with _my_ dragons right after I've finished with the Targaryen girl. And my niece and nephew."

"Is that a threat, Lord Greyjoy?" Cersei asked.

Greyjoy looked at her. "That's _King_ Greyjoy. I've claimed the Salt Throne, just as you've claimed the Iron one, Your Grace. And no, I'm not making threats. I'm offering an alliance, in exchange for your men and ships."

Cersei sat back down. "Assuming that this plan of your works, what's to stop you from turning the dragons on us?"

Euron spread his arms expansively. "My word as an honourable ally." He looked around at their unimpressed faces, and laughed. "Alright, look, the fact is, I'd have control of the dragons, but I still only have a very small number of Ironborn, compared to your mainland forces, and those numbers do count. We need to work together to mount a large enough force to stop the Dragon Queen's fleet, and even after the dragons are taken from her, we could still be of much greater use to each other as allies than as enemies." He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. "And I was thinking, once we've finished with the Dragon Queen… (and just what we decide to do with her is still up for discussion, in my mind,) well, after that, we could take the fleet and the dragons north, and crush those irritating Starks you seem to hate so much." He grinned. "What do you think, Your Grace? Would Sansa Stark's head on a platter be enough to convince you that our alliance is worthwhile? Because we can make that part of our endgame, if you like."

Jaime glanced at Cersei, who looked interested. She turned to Qyburn. "Send for the servants to bring us more wine, if you would," she told him, before returning her attention to Greyjoy. "It seems that we have much to discuss."


	2. The King in the North: Petyr I

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 **Chapter 2: The King in the North**

 **Petyr I**

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" _The King in the North!"_ they'd shouted, to Petyr's intense shock and dismay. Long after the declaration had been made, he could still hear them in his memory. _"The King in the North!"_ Why? Why had the Northern lords declared the bastard over the trueborn daughter?

He'd been over and over it in his mind, and he still didn't understand why it had happened. And that irked him. Petyr Baelish was a man who prided himself on understanding how other people thought. On thinking ahead, knowing how people would react to any given situation, and using that knowledge to manoeuvre and manipulate them into making the choices that Petyr needed them to make. He knew that it didn't always work quite as he intended: Sometimes, even with the best laid plans, the pieces just didn't move in quite the way you expected them to, but that was all part of the Game. It meant making adjustments to get things back on track… but it was difficult to make those adjustments when he didn't really understand why the pieces had moved in the wrong direction in the first place.

And that was why he'd been obsessively thinking about it ever since Jon Snow had been declared _"The King in the North!"_

It had started with a ten-year-old girl, who had looked up at the handsome face of Ned Stark's bastard, and declared that she did not care that he was a bastard, and he was her king. It was a surprise to Petyr. Surely a headstrong young girl like that would have preferred a female leader to call her Queen? But no, she had named the bastard instead. Still, as surprising as it was, one little girl's outrageous declaration was nothing too consequential in itself; vaguely amusing, perhaps. The problem was that after this, all the Northern lords had suddenly started falling to their knees or raising their swords and following the ten year old's example, declaring the bastard Stark boy _"The King in the North!"_

It wasn't what Petyr had planned on.

He had worked long and hard to gain effective control of the Vale, which he now held securely through his control of the weak little boy who was technically its lord. He'd known it was time to start moving pieces into place to gain control of his next region, and why not the North? He'd had Sansa, a scared young girl who promised to become even more beautiful than her mother. And the North, always the domain of the Starks, had been divided and under the hated Boltons' control. Ripe for the taking.

Sansa herself was a little too wilful and confident for Petyr's liking, even after all she'd been through, and needed to be broken down a little. Roose Bolton's sadistic son, Ramsay, provided the perfect opportunity for that. Petyr didn't intend to leave her in Ramsay's care for long; he didn't want the girl's spirit completely broken, after all. But with Stannis soon to be marching his army to Winterfell, and likely to win, Petyr had thought that perhaps he could swoop back in and help Sansa pick up the pieces after the Boltons were defeated. Stannis would not stay long in Winterfell, and would likely see that his best option would be to appoint Sansa Stark as his Warden of the North before heading further south, possibly with a larger army, if the Northern houses decided to pledge fealty to him… though the Northern houses would listen first to Sansa, as the last surviving Stark, and do what she commanded.

Sansa would be traumatised after her treatment at Ramsay's hands, and desperate to see a friendly face. Stannis, hard and stern, and a stranger to her besides, would _not_ be a friendly face.

That was when Petyr planned to swoop in, distraught at how he'd underestimated a stranger, having had no idea that Ramsay was such a monster. He would be the friendly face that Sansa would turn to in relief. He would be the one to help her after her ordeal, the one she would come to rely on, and the one who's advice and council she would listen to more than any other. She would rule the North, supposedly in King Stannis' name, as the Baratheon swept south to cause more war and grief for the Lannisters.

And then Petyr would have both the Vale and the North, through young Lord Arryn and Lady Stark. He would continue to comfort Sansa, and probably stay at Winterfell with her for a time. And when the time was right, he would marry her, finally claiming the daughter of the only woman he had ever loved.

After that, he would wait to see how things played out in the South. Eventually he'd need to make his next move, perhaps helping Sansa's Tully relatives reclaim the Riverlands? Or perhaps, even better, if Petyr could arrange for the death of Lord Edmure and his infant son, that would eliminate the male line of House Tully, and then Sansa could claim the Riverlands, on account of the fact that her mother was a Tully… or else Robin Arryn could make the claim. Either one of them would do. But all of that was too far ahead in time to plan in too much detail just then.

As it was, Stannis lost his battle. That was always a possibility, and a major reason why Petyr chose to hold back, and not to send the Vale forces to support him. Sansa had escaped her abusive husband, and run to her bastard half-brother, whom Petyr had all but forgotten about, up at the Wall and out of the Game as he was. He'd known that the boy had become Lord Commander, but the men at the Wall took no part in the Game of Thrones, and as a bastard, and a sworn brother of the Night's Watch, neither would Jon Snow.

And he hadn't, not until Sansa had gone running to him for help, instead of turning to Petyr. But that was understandable as well. The Wall was closer to Winterfell than the Vale. Still, Petyr knew it was time for him to move the Vale forces in, and had done so, offering Sansa his aid in the coming battle, as well as a sincere apology for not seeing Ramsay for the monster he was.

His first real shock had been Sansa's refusal of his help, and the fact that, rather than being broken, she seemed harder and more confident that he had ever seen her, and angry too. No, not just angry, but furious, and vengeful. Not at all like the silly little girl with dreams of princes and knights, nor the frightened girl who was beaten by Joffrey's Kingsguard, nor the scared girl he'd kept in hiding at the Vale, just starting to learn how to play the Game. He had expected her gratitude, perhaps even her falling into his arms when he offered the men of the Vale to help her retake her home. Instead… well, instead he'd counted himself fortunate to have left that meeting with his head intact. And he'd known after that that Sansa Stark wouldn't be someone he could break down and rule through easily, the way he did with young Lord Arryn.

Much to his own surprise, Sansa's strength had fuelled Petyr's passion for her. She wasn't a little girl anymore, and she was growing into not only a great beauty, but a woman as fierce as her mother. He'd felt some desire for her while she was at the Vale, but ultimately, it was winning the Game that mattered more to him. So he'd sent her to Bolton. But after he'd seen her again, seen her strength of will and how she'd grown, her refusal to break no matter how much the people around her tried to batter her down… he'd known then that _she_ was his match. She would not be cowed any longer, and she understood the Game, even if she was still a novice at playing it. And she really was so much like Cat. And he knew that he had to have _both_ her and the Iron Throne. Nothing less would satisfy him.

When she'd changed her mind about accepting his help in the Battle for Winterfell, he'd sent his forces gladly. And they timed their arrival _perfectly_. It was Sansa and Petyr who brought the knights of the Vale in to save the Stark loyalist forces. It was _they_ who won the battle.

When he'd seen her in the godswood later, he'd known it was time to tell her everything. The one person he'd told of his true intentions.

She'd pushed him away when he'd moved to kiss her, untrusting. He was disappointed by that, but then, she _had_ just had a rather negative recent marriage experience, so it wasn't too surprising that it would take time before she was willing to get close to someone again, in a romantic sense. Once she was ready though, Petyr fully intended to be that someone. He had missed his chance with Cat. Every chance he'd had with Cat, but he would not miss his chance with her daughter. Sansa was too strong for him to rule through and control, but he would be content to have her love and trust, and rule with her.

Ultimately he would be in charge once he took the Iron Throne, of course, but with Sansa as his queen, and as a strong queen, not one the courtiers around them could easily manipulate... yes, that was better. That was something to aim for.

When the Northern lords come to Winterfell to pledge fealty to the Starks once more, Petyr had known that Sansa was about to be acknowledged as their liege lady, to have true power in her own right for the first time in her life… and instead they'd chosen the bastard. And not just as their new liege lord, but as _"The King in the North!"_

Petyr sighed. Well, there was only one thing for it.

The bastard had to die.

Petyr might not understand why the Northern lords had acted as they did, but he could still remove the problem. Then the Northern lords would turn to Sansa, and things could get back on track. The only problem was that it would have to be done discretely, with no one suspecting Petyr's involvement. If anyone did… well, they'd kill him without a second thought.

But _why_ had the Northern lords chosen the bastard as _"The King in the North!"_? He still didn't understand. It was like an itch that he couldn't stop scratching. He needed to understand it, but it didn't make any sense! There were stories about Jon Snow's exploits at the Wall, of course, fantastical, heroic stories about his skill in battle, his prowess with a sword… but during the Battle for Winterfell, the boy had ended up leading his army into a slaughter. Sansa and Petyr were the ones who saved the day.

Besides, Jon Snow was not only a bastard, but a deserter from the Night's Watch. And on top of that, the boy had brought an army of hated wildlings south of the Wall. Yes, he'd used those wildlings to help him win the battle, an intelligent move perhaps, but then the downside of that was that now, with the battle won, there were a large number of wildling survivors that the Northerners would have to deal with.

He'd expected the Northern lords to declare Sansa the Lady of Winterfell, their liege. It wouldn't have surprised him if Sansa had then pardoned her half-brother for his desertion; the boy was the only family she had left, after all, aside from her cousin in the Vale. But he'd never expected the bastard Stark to be declared _"The King in the North!"_ Especially after he'd started talking about mythical white walkers and armies of the dead descending on the Wall as though he actually _believed_ it.

As Petyr had looked around, he saw that even the lords of the Vale seemed to have joined in the chanting. _"The King in the North!"_ Ultimately they would do as Lord Robin Arryn told them, though, and Lord Arryn would listen to Petyr. Although Bronze Yohn Royce might use the opportunity to try and remove Petyr from power, the man wasn't smart enough to play the Game in that way. Still, Petyr would keep an eye on him. The soldiers trusted him as their commander, after all. Lord Royce did have some influence.

As he considered his next move, Petyr continued walking the grounds of Winterfell. He entered the godswood and stood before the heart tree, thinking about the best way to rid himself of King Jon Snow.

He thought he could probably arrange an unfortunate accident that would convince most of the Northern lords, but Sansa… Sansa had seen too much of the way Petyr worked. He himself had explained too much if it to her, and he now doubted he could simply kill off her beloved half-brother without coming under suspicion from her, no matter how carefully he planned it out.

And he needed Sansa on his side. By his side. He needed her love and her trust.

Perhaps there was an alternative way to go about getting rid of the bastard then? Instead of killing him, perhaps…

"Lord Baelish," a familiar voice interrupted his musings. He turned to see Sansa standing there, tall and beautiful, her red hair like a flame. Touched by fire, he'd heard the wildlings call it. An apt description, and unexpected from savages such as them. Though he supposed he should admit that he really knew nothing of them and whatever passed for their culture north of the Wall.

"My lady," Petyr replied, bowing. "Or should I call you 'Princess'?" An idea occurred to him then. Sansa would not take kindly to the _death_ of her half-brother, and Petyr would never escape suspicion if the bastard suddenly dropped dead. But Sansa had been ignored and passed over during the declarations, and surely that had to rankle. She may not want her brother dead, but she should be happy to take his position of power way from him.

Petyr favoured the lady with a smile, as he walked forward and took both her hands in his. He looked into her eyes as he spoke in a low, saddened voice, for her ears alone. "It should have been you, you know. The declarations, the oaths of fealty. _You_ saved the day. _You_ should be their Queen."

Sansa removed her hands from Petyr's grip and walked past him to look up at the heart tree. She stood in silence for a few moments, and Petyr sensed it would be best to wait for her to speak.

"I don't want to be Queen," she said, surprisingly. She turned to face him again. "I did once, I'll admit it. Once, I wanted to become queen more than anything. When I was a stupid little girl with stupid dreams who understood nothing of the way the world worked. But now…" she looked past him, and Petyr turned to see that Lady Brienne, Sansa's huge, brutish, female sworn shield, had followed her into the godswood.

Sansa didn't seem concerned, but then, why should she? Petyr on the other hand, was less than comfortable having that brute at his back. But when Sansa spoke again, he had to turn back to face her.

"I do not want to be a queen," she said. "After everything that's happened these past few years… I just wanted my home back. And my family." She took a deep breath, let it out. "Most of my family is dead and gone now, as you well know. All I have left is my brother."

"Half-brother," Petyr reminded her.

"I don't care," Sansa said, voice hardening. "I don't care if he's only a 'half' brother. I don't care if he's a bastard. He is my _brother_. And I need to make something very clear to you, Lord Baelish."

She stepped forward, and Petyr sensed her sworn shield moving closer behind him, though he didn't turn to look. He carefully kept his expression innocent, concealing his thoughts.

"Did you hear about what I did to Ramsay Bolton?" Sansa whispered.

Petyr swallowed. He had. He forced himself to give her a small smile. "Torn apart by his own hounds, from what I heard," he said. "And no less that he deserved, after what he did to you." He altered his expression to show her his sincere regret and remorse. "Sansa, I swear to you that I did not know –"

"Save it!" she interrupted, venom in her voice. "You've already tried to convince me that you did not know what Ramsay Bolton was, and I still don't believe you. You make it your business to know people, and Ramsay was hardly discrete about his… his tendencies."

Petyr moved to speak again, but Sansa continued before he could. "You told me you wanted to make up for selling me to him, and bringing the knights of the Vale to help us win the battle went some way towards doing that, but it still doesn't mean I believe you, or that I think you can be trusted."

Petyr spread his hands. "What more would you have of me, my lady? If I could turn back time and change things so that you never had to suffer Ramsay's affections, I would, but I cannot. I have already pledged myself and the Vale to House Stark. I have helped you win back your home. Sansa, what more can I do?" He blinked tears away from his eyes. Hopefully that might make her soften towards him a little.

It didn't.

"I know you, Lord Baelish," she said, coldly. "And I know that you will ultimately act only in whatever you believe is _your_ best interests. Yes, I'm glad you helped us win the battle and pledged the Vale to our side, but understand that does _not_ mean that we owe you anything. You are still making up for what you did to me, when you gave me to a monster."

Petyr hid a smile. Was she trying to manipulate him, he wondered? Trying to put him in her power? If so, perhaps this was a sign that she was finally starting to play the Game. But she was still a novice, in that regard. "Of course," he said. "Anything I can do –"

"And there is something else you need to understand," she interrupted again, her voice cold and hard. "Not only do I know you, but I know what you want. And I know the kinds of things you'll do to get it. So let me make something very, very clear. I love my brother. He is the only family I have left. If _anything_ should happen to him, and I don't care whether there is a scrap of evidence to suggest your involvement or not, if anything happens to him, I will kill you. I will kill you in such a way that makes what I did to Ramsay Bolton seem like _nothing_. You will beg me for the gentle mercy that I showed that monster in the end, if you hurt my brother."

Petyr had already come to the conclusion that he couldn't kill Jon Snow off without coming under suspicion from Sansa, but even so… "But, if His Grace should fall ill, or have an accident, or if someone else does harm him… my lady, I cannot ensure that nothing happens to your brother. I'm sure he has many enemies. But I can give you my sincerest word that I will not take action against him, if that's what you're so worried about. For your sake." He moved to take her hands again, but she stepped away.

"Just remember what I said. If he dies, you die as well. Horribly." She walked past Petyr to join her grim looking bodyguard, who had one hand on the pommel of her sword.

There was one thing Petyr wanted to know before Sansa left, though. "My lady!" he called to her.

She stopped, and half turned to face him.

"Sansa… what your brother said, about dead armies and white walkers coming to attack us all… you don't truly believe any of that nonsense, do you?"

He watched her face carefully, and saw the doubt and uncertainty there.

Petyr spread his hands. "Doesn't it concern you? That the man in charge of the North actually believes in such things? You say you love your brother and don't want any harm to come to him, and that's understandable. But, surely you realise that he's actually putting himself and his people in danger by spouting such… worrying delusions? You would both be much safer if someone more reasonable was in power, don't you think?"

"Like you?"

Petyr smiled. "No, my lady, like you."

She shook her head. "Jon isn't delusional. If he says the white walkers are real, then I believe him. He's not the only one. The wildlings believe it too, and the men of the Night's Watch. And the Northern lords… Well, you saw them. Some of them believe it too."

"Spreading tales doesn't make those tales true. Come, my lady, I thought you'd learned about the foolishness of believing in fantasies and stories."

Sansa didn't reply, just turned and walked out of the godswood, her sworn shield following at her heels.

Petyr remained in the godswood, his mind already working on the best way to go about removing King Jon Snow from power. There would be no need to kill the bastard and risk Sansa's wrath and grief, he knew. Petyr simply needed to discredit him, to convince the Northern lords that, no matter Jon Snow's skill and prowess in battle, a man who believed in imaginary monsters was not fit to rule.


	3. The New Raven: Bran I

**.**

 **.**

 **Chapter 3: The New Raven**

 **Bran I**

 **.**

Brandon Stark stood unnoticed as he watched his younger self and his siblings play. It was eleven years ago, and they were playing Dragon Conquest.

"Why do I have to be the King who Knelt?" Robb grumbled. "That's a rubbish role."

"You're the heir to Winterfell, Stark," Jon said, "so you should play a Stark."

"Then why do you get to be Aegon the Conqueror, Snow?"

"Because," Jon said, grinning as he pointed his sword at Robb, his black cape flowing majestically in the breeze. "I beat you in our sparring match, brother, which means I get to pick this time."

"That's not fair. You nearly always beat me in sword matches. We should joust to decide next time. Then I'd beat you."

Robb had been better than Jon with a lance, but Jon was the better swordsman, Bran remembered them saying that. Though they both liked to compete against each other all the same, and practiced with each other more than anyone else.

"Anyway," Robb continued, "Torrhen Stark was probably the most uninspiring King of the North ever. If I was a King of Winter, I wouldn't kneel to a Southern invader. I'd fight. And anyway, I'd rather be Bran the Builder or something. Then I could build the Wall with giants helping." He considered that for a minute, then grinned. "We could get Hodor to be the giants, I bet he wouldn't mind. We could build the Wall out of ice and snow."

"You can't be Bran the Builder, Robb," Bran's younger self said, his voice surprisingly high pitched and childlike. Bran had watched a lot of scenes from the past, but there was something bizarre about watching his own younger self. "Bran the Builder was actually eight _thousand_ years ago. Maester Luwin told me when we studied ancient histories. If Bran the Builder met Aegon the Conqueror, he'd be an actual _skeleton_. So he couldn't fight anything."

"Unless the Others raised him as a wight," Arya said.

"Wights and Others aren't real," Sansa said confidently.

"They were so, once," Five-year-old Bran said. "Old Nan said –"

"Old Nan just tells stories," Robb interrupted. "None of them are actually real."

"Some are."

"If someone was going to be Bran the Builder, it should be Bran," Jon said. "But Bran the Builder was in the time of the Long Night, and we're not playing the Long Night, we're playing Dragon Conquest. How about we agree to play the Long Night next time instead?"

"Okay," Robb conceded, then he grinned, "as long as I get first choice on who to be when we play Long Night."

"Fine," Jon agreed. "But right now, we're playing Dragon Conquest."

Robb sighed. "Right, might as well get it over with." Then he knelt before Jon and offered him his sword.

"What are you doing?" Arya asked, waving her own sword around.

"Being the King Who Knelt," Robb said, deadpan, still on his knees.

"You're just giving up without a fight?" Arya asked indignantly.

"That's what Torrhen Stark did," Robb insisted. "Told you he was a rubbish person to be." He looked up at Jon. "I surrender to the Targaryens, Your Grace," he said dramatically. "The lands and people north of the Neck are yours."

Out of the corner of his eye, the present day Bran noticed that his mother and father had walked out into the courtyard, and were watching the children play from a distance. He couldn't read his father's expression, but his mother was watching Robb kneeling before Jon with a huge scowl on her face.

"Rise, Lord Torrhen Stark," Jon said. "From this day forth, I name you Lord of Winterfell and Warden of the North."

Arya, Sansa, and Bran's younger self cheered, and Robb got to his feet again.

In the background, Bran's mother glared for a moment longer before turning in a swirl of skirts and stalking off. Bran didn't know what she was so angry about, they were just playing, after all. Their father hesitated for a moment, then followed his wife back inside the Keep.

"Can we go beat up the Vale now?" Arya asked Jon. She was pretending to be Visenya, the sword wielding Targaryen sister, while Sansa was Rhaenys, mostly just so that she could play at being a Queen.

"Yeah, okay," Jon said.

Then Jon, Sansa and Arya went to mount their ponies, which were playing the part of the dragons, Balerion, Vhagar and Maraxes.

Bran's younger self then ran up to Jon, just as he'd mounted his pony/dragon. "I want to be a knight!" the younger Bran declared.

"You have to be the Vale!" Arya said, riding around them in circles, with the blunted practice sword in one hand. "Then I can fight you with Dark Sister!" She slashed at the air with her sword, but didn't falter in her riding. Arya had always been a good rider.

"The Vale didn't fight either," Sansa said. She was sitting tall and straight and gracefully on her pony/dragon. "But the new Lord of the Vale got to go riding on Visenya's dragon. Arya, you have to let Bran ride on the horse too if we're going to win the Vale."

"I want to be a _knight_!" the younger Bran repeated.

Jon gave in. "My Lord of Winterfell," he called to Robb from atop his horse/Balerion the Black Dread. "Do we have a spare sword for our good young knight here?" he waved a hand to indicate the five-year-old Bran.

"I believe so, Your Grace," Robb replied, bowing to Jon before running to fetch another practice sword.

Jon dismounted and stood in front of Bran's younger self before knighting him with his own practice sword.

"Rise, Ser Brandon," Jon said.

Bran's younger self jumped to his feet with a huge grin on his face, and Robb handed him another practice sword.

"Will you fight with us, Ser Brandon?" Jon asked.

"Yeah!" Bran's younger self said enthusiastically. Then he paused. "Wait, who are we fighting?"

Just then, Theon appeared, walking beneath the open portcullis of the gates of Winterfell.

"How about the Iron Islands?" Jon suggested. "Ser Bran, you and Lord Stark command our ground troops." He then looked to Arya and Sansa, one on either side of him. "The dragons will take the enemy from the air…."

Present day Bran continued to watch them play, sadness in his heart for all that they had lost since then. He wished that he could go back to that happier time, and change what happened later. Make it so that he'd never fallen from the tower, so that his legs still worked and he could really become a knight… only he couldn't. Bran would never be a knight.

He wished he could make it so that Father had never accepted the old fat king's invitation to go south and be the King's Hand. Then Father, Arya and Sansa would never have left Winterfell. Lady, Sansa's direwolf, wouldn't have been killed, Father wouldn't have been murdered, and Robb wouldn't have had to go to war.

Of course, none of that was possible. The past was already written. Bran couldn't undo it. He could go back and observe it, but he couldn't change it. No one could.

Robb was dead too, now, because of that war. Summer had sensed it when his brother, Grey Wind, died, and Bran had known as well. He hadn't known what that meant for Robb at the time though, and had hoped that he'd survived.

Later, Bran had met the Three-Eyed Raven, and once he understood what the other Greenseer could do, Bran had asked him about Robb. The Three-Eyed Raven had refused to show Bran a vision of what happened, but when Bran insisted on knowing, he did tell him that Robb and his mother had been betrayed and murdered by the Freys.

He also assured Bran that the rest of his siblings still lived. Rickon had made it safely to the Umbers. Jon, Arya and Sansa were alive. But after that, Bran was told to focus on learning to use his warg and greenseer abilities, so he didn't know what had become of his family later on.

He meant to use the weirwood trees to find out, but the truth was that he was still learning how to do that. He'd managed to find a vision of Sansa praying before a weirwood tree in King's Landing at one point, but that didn't tell him anything about where his family was now.

And Lord Brynden, the Three-Eyed Raven, was dead now too. And that was entirely Bran's fault. He was the one who'd gone into a vision alone, wandered through the ranks of wights, and stupidly assumed he was safe from the white walkers because he wasn't really there. Instead, the Night King had marked him, and that mark had enabled the walkers to break through the spells protecting the cave. And because of that, not only was the Three-Eyed Raven dead, but the last of the Children of the Forest had almost certainly perished too. That cave had been their final sanctuary.

And Hodor… Hodor had been a good and loyal friend to his family for as long as Bran could remember. Since long before Bran was even born. He'd once been more than the simple servant who could only say 'Hodor'. Once he'd been able to talk just like everyone else. It was Bran who'd ruined his mind. His fault… and Jojen, Meera's brother, who'd died in order to get Bran to that cave in the first place…

He realised that he was no longer paying any attention to the scene of innocent childhood play in front of him. Not that this happy vision from the past was doing anything to comfort him anymore.

Bran withdrew from the past and woke up in the present, lying in the snow with his hand pressed to the bark of a weirwood tree somewhere north of the Wall. His legs lay useless in front of him, and his breath misted in the cold air.

He sat up and looked around, but could see nothing except trees and snow. Meera was nowhere to be found. Uncle Benjen had ridden off after taking Bran and Meera to safety. Or relative safety, anyway. Nowhere was truly safe, not anymore.

Bran couldn't walk outside of his visions, so after a glare at his useless legs, he reached out with his mind, searching for something he could warg into. Before, he'd just have used Summer, but his direwolf had died too.

At first he couldn't find anything, but as he stretched his senses further, he came across a type of mind that felt familiar… and not familiar at all. He latched onto it, and felt the creature snarl.

 _I don't want to hurt you_ , he said to the direwolf, as it tried to fight the intrusion. It was a direwolf, that's why the mind had seemed familiar. But it was a strange direwolf, not Summer, but a wild one that had grown up north of the Wall. He sensed that the animal was hungry, as there was less and less to eat as winter set in.

He could have forced the new direwolf to obey his will, no matter what the wolf itself wanted. The Three-Eyed Raven had taught him all about how to do that. But it would be better if he could convince the animal to work with him willingly. _Let me use your eyes and legs_ , he thought, _and I can take you south to where there's food._ He pictured fresh meat roasting over a fire, the smell of it, and his own hunger. The wolf understood. They were both hungry. _We should hunt_ , Bran thought, anticipating the taste of hot blood in his mouth after a kill. _We will hunt. But first we need to find my friend. And we're not going to hunt her_.

The wolf stopped fighting Bran, willing to consider anything, at this point, that might lead to finding more food. Bran took control of the direwolf and started using his nose to track down his friend.

The wolf padded through the snow, thick flakes drifting down as they went. The sparse forest provided little cover, and the snow lay thick on the ground, crunching beneath his paws. The forest grew denser and darker as he walked.

Tree branches rustled faintly in the wind, but other than that, and the sound of his own footsteps, the forest was silent.

After some time, he heard a scrabbling sound near the foot of a tree, and pricked up his ears as he turned his head to look in that direction.

He heard the scrabbling sound again, beneath the snow.

The wolf knew what it was. He could smell it, faintly, as well. Food.

His mouth watered.

Bran withdrew slightly, still warged into the animal, but allowing the wolf to take control.

The direwolf crept forward, towards the sound, hunkered down, listened, crept closer, silent so as to not spook the little animal… and pounced.

His front paws broke through the crust of snow and his head whipped down, closing his jaws over the squeaking grey rodent before it had a chance to escape through the little tunnels it had created.

He tilted his head back and ate the mouse in one gulp, meat, bones, fur and all.

He was still hungry though. He waited a few minutes to see if he could hear anything else, but the forest was silent once again. He sniffed around, but could find no further trace of prey, so he moved on.

Bran took full control of the wolf's mind again, and continued searching for Meera.

He finally picked up her scent trail and started to follow it, and came across her just as she shot down a squirrel using a bow and arrow.

The direwolf's hunger took over, and he leaped onto the little animal, still warm. It was barely more than a mouthful, but it was a delicious, if a bit overly hairy, mouthful. Perhaps three times as big as the mouse had been.

After he finished eating, he became suddenly aware of the rank stench of fear, coming from the human. _Meera_ , Bran reminded the wolf.

He turned and looked up to see that Meera had another arrow notched and pointed at his face.

For a moment, Bran simply stared at her in confusion, head tilted to one side.

Then he remembered that Meera wouldn't recognise him in this form. This wasn't like when he'd warged into Summer, a direwolf that Meera knew. This wolf was a stranger, and a hungry one at that. He'd need to prove himself no threat.

The direwolf disagreed, and wanted to snarl at the girl, to warn her off. He knew she'd run, and then he'd chase her down and he'd get a much better meal –

 _No!_ Bran told the wolf firmly.

The wolf growled in his mind, angry and hungry. A human would feed him for days. Far better than any of the little rodents he'd been catching recently. But Bran crushed the wolf's will beneath his own. He was the one in control, not the wolf. _Not her. You_ never _hurt her, understand?_

He felt the wolf's reluctant acceptance, but decided to back it up with reasons the direwolf could understand. He reminded the wolf that Meera killed the squirrel that they'd just eaten. She was a good hunter, and part of their pack. They would eat better with her around.

The direwolf would have preferred to simply eat the human, but realised that he couldn't throw off Bran's hold, and stopped fighting him.

Meera stayed where she was, frozen, an arrow pointed at the direwolf's head as her breath puffed out in small streams of mist.

Bran realised he'd have to do something to convince her that it was him, not just some random direwolf. He tried smiling at her, tongue lolling out, panting.

Meera looked at his sharp teeth and swallowed nervously. Her hands were sure and steady on the bow though, and he knew that she'd fire if he made the slightest threatening move.

So, instead of doing anything remotely threatening, Bran dropped to the ground and rolled over onto his back, despite the wolf's strong objections, belly exposed like a dog wanting a scratch. He leaned his head back and looked at her, upside down, and whined softly.

Meera looked a little confused, but after a few moments, she lowered the bow. "B-Bran?"

Bran rolled back onto his front, looked up at Meera, and smiled again.

Meera walked forward, slowly. "Bran? Is that you?"

Bran slowly and very clearly nodded his head, not something wolves usually did.

Finally Meera seemed convinced, and lowered her guard. She let out a deep breath, looked at the bushy tail that was all that remained of the squirrel, and then scowled at him. "You ate my squirrel!" She complained. "Right, you're going to help me hunt down a replacement."

They hunted together after that, and soon the wolf came to agree with Bran; Meera was a good hunter. She moved quietly through the forest, not scaring away the prey animals like many humans did. And her sticks, which Bran named bow and arrows, could shoot through the air and skewer prey faster than any wolf could pounce, which meant that once they'd spotted their prey, they rarely missed it and let it escape.

By the time night fell, they'd caught three more squirrels and two rabbits. The wolf ate all the squirrels, but Meera insisted on taking the rabbits back to their camp. The wolf didn't mind, not anymore. Meera was pack, just as Bran had told him, so of course some of the food should be for her. Besides, he hadn't eaten this well for a long time.

As they padded through the snow, towards the weirwood tree where Meera had left Bran, Bran saw his own body come into view, lying on the ground, eyes white and unseeing.

Bran let go of the wolf's mind and returned to his own body, then sat up and looked around.

The direwolf was a lean, half-starved animal, slightly smaller than Summer had been, with dark grey fur and a white furred neck and belly.

Bran raised his hand, and the direwolf walked a couple of steps further forward and sniffed at it. Then he licked Bran's hand briefly, before lying down in the snow beside him. Bran lay his hand on the back of the direwolf's neck and watched Meera as she set up a fire, skinned the rabbits and put them on a spit to cook.

When the meat was ready, Bran and Meera shared the rabbits while the new direwolf looked on, still hungry, but not begrudging either of them their share. He finally curled up and went to sleep at the foot of the weirwood tree.

"We should get some sleep too," Bran said. He could still sense the direwolf's mind, on the edge of his senses, and was confident that the new wolf would obey his orders, even when he wasn't warged into his body.

He'd need to think of a name for the new direwolf as well, but just as Bran turned to Meera to ask her opinion on the subject, she asked something else.

"What if the wights come back?" Meera asked? "Or worse, the white walkers?"

"We could never outrun them if they did," Bran reasoned. "We'll just have to hope that Uncle Benjen got us far enough away. And besides, we really do need to sleep, both of us." He looked at the wolf. "The direwolf should hear if anything dangerous gets close, and warn us. Or, I hope so, anyway."

Meera looked at the wolf. "Alright."

In the end, the three of them curled up together under their furs, to conserve warmth. And they slept.

Bran was woken by the direwolf moving, getting to his feet, and snarling.

Bran sat up and looked around. Meera was awake too, and already reaching for her bow.

At first, Bran couldn't see anything dangerous, but he looked in the direction the wolf was snarling, and, knowing the wolf's eyes were better than his own, warged into him.

Once he'd taken a moment to adjust to the change in perspective, Bran and the direwolf looked into the darkness and saw figures moving towards them with a slow, shambling gait. Human-like figures.

Fear gripped him. Had the wights found them?

There was no way that Bran would be able to escape if they had. But Meera and the direwolf might be able to run, if they left him behind. The question would be how to convince Meera to do that.

But then he picked up the scent of the intruders. Not rot, not human and cold… but something else. Earth and woods and living people, but not human. Leaves and bark from their clothing… it was a scent he recognised, and Bran relaxed. The wolf didn't know the scent, but the boy did, from the times he'd warged into Summer while at the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven.

As the figures came closer, he saw them clearly. Children of the Forest, as the First Men had called them, or 'those who sing the song of earth', 'Singers', as they called themselves. Small in stature, with nut brown skin dappled with lighter grey, and slitted, golden eyes.

They were usually fast and graceful though. Bran had never seen them out in the open before, but here they were, twenty or thirty of them, shivering, some clearly injured, being supported by their companions as they shuffled along. That explained the shambling gait, then.

He padded forward, meeting the first of the Children, not one he recognised on sight though. She looked at him, and spoke in the common tongue, to Bran's surprise. He'd thought that only the one he'd called Leaf could speak the common tongue. "Brandon Stark," she said, recognising him even in wolf form. "We're here to follow you back to the Wall."

Bran had a thousand questions he wanted to ask, but of course, as a direwolf, he couldn't. So he released his hold on the direwolf's mind and returned to his own body again.

Bran looked to the children of the forest as they approached the weirwood. "Are you from the same cave as the Three-Eyed Raven?" he asked.

"You are the Three-Eyed Raven now, Brandon Stark," one of the Children said. It was the same one who had spoken to him as a direwolf. "But I understand what you mean. Yes, that place was our last sanctuary. We were all that managed to flee the attack, and since we have nowhere else to go, we have decided to head south with you. Perhaps we can join with the men and fight together to push back the Others, as our people did once before. Or perhaps we shall all simply perish. But we have chosen to try and find a way to survive, rather than wait in the cold to die."

There was no accusation in her voice, but nevertheless, Bran felt guilt course through him as he thought of the attack, knowing he'd been responsible.

"I'm sorry," he said to the surviving Children. "It was my fault they got through." And his fault they lost Hodor and Summer as well. And his fault that Hodor's mind was damaged years before Bran had even been born…

"We know what happened Brandon," another of the Children said, sounding resigned rather than angry.

"What's done is done," another said. "And now we must deal with the situation we find ourselves in. Going south of the Wall is our best hope for survival. And if young Brandon will vouch for us, perhaps we might even survive long enough to warn the men before they take out their weapons and kill us."

He had to ask… "How is it that you can all speak the common tongue now? When we were in the caves… only Leaf ever spoke to us."

"Not all of us can," the first one to speak told him. "But some of us… yes. But we decided to keep that to ourselves and simply listen. A number of us were sceptical about you when you first arrived, Brandon Stark, despite the former Three-Eyed Raven warning us that you would come, and that you needed to learn and take his place. So we listened and pretended not to understand. If you believed we could not understand your words, there would be no need to guard your speech around us."

"But you're telling me now?"

"Now, _you_ are the Three-Eyed Raven. And we need your help to get south without the men killing us."

"I can't go south of the Wall," Bran admitted.

Meera's head whipped round to stare at him. "What?" she asked.

Bran gave her an apologetic look. This was something he'd thought of before, but he hadn't mentioned it to her because he hadn't been able to think of an argument that he thought would convince her. Not after everything they'd been through.

He turned back to the Children and continued, "I mean, the Night King touched me, marked me, and that's how he got through your spells, into the cave. If I go south of the Wall, what if that lets him break through the spells on the Wall as well?"

He didn't understand exactly how the spells on the Wall worked, but he had learned that the Children of the Forest had helped put spells into its foundation, in order to keep the white walkers out. Spells similar to the one that had been on the cave.

The Children exchanged looks, and then the first one, Bran decided to think of her as 'Pine', came forward and crouched in front of him. "Is the mark still there?" she asked.

He didn't know. He hadn't looked since he'd first woken up from the vision and seen it, back in the cave. He pushed up the sleeve of his arm and Pine examined his skin. Bran could see no further trace of the Night King's mark, to his intense relief, but he waited for her pronouncement to be sure.

"It's gone," she said. "Unsurprising, or else they'd have found you here already."

"Does that mean we _can_ all get south of the Wall then?" Meera asked, looking around warily.

"I think so," Bran replied.

"Yes," Pine confirmed.

Meera sagged in relief. "Good. Because I've had just about enough of wights and white walkers and all this stuff north of the Wall. Time to get south of it again."

"I have no idea how far we are from the Wall though," Bran said.

"Still quite far," Pine replied. "And with all our injured, it will take us some time to get there."

"We can make sleds in the morning, can't we?" Meera said.

Pine nodded. "I suppose we'll have to. Even then, none of us have the strength to go particularly fast. It will still take us some time to get there. We should go to the castle by the sea. That one is the closest, of all the gates still open."

"Eastwatch," Meera said.

"No," Bran said, shaking his head. "Not Eastwatch. We need to go to Castle Black. My brother's there, Jon. He's a man of the Night's Watch. He'll help us." Bran took a deep breath, thinking about all that he'd learned. "I hope Jon's actually at Castle Black this time though. I have something important to tell him."


	4. Petitions: Jon I

**.**

 **.**

 **Chapter 4: Petitions**

 **Jon I**

.

Sigorn, the new Magnar of Thenn, stood before the dais in the Great Hall of Winterfell. He had the shaved head and facial scars of his people, and wore thick furs against the cold, as well as leather and bronze scales for armour. A bronze sword was at his waist, and across his back was a battleaxe reminiscent of the one that his father, Styr, the former Magnar, had used to try and kill Jon during the Battle of Castle Black, more than two years ago now.

Jon had ended up killing Styr instead.

Ordinarily, that would have been a problem. Sigorn would have cried blood debt, and challenged Jon to a fight to the death in order to avenge his father. But Sigorn had been at Hardhome. He'd seen the white walkers and their wights attack. He'd seen the Night's Watch fighting alongside the Free Folk. And he was fully aware that the only reason any of his people had escaped at all was because Jon had shown up with ships to take them south of the Wall.

As a result, Sigorn was willing to forego the blood debt and forgive Jon for killing his father, writing it off as a consequence of war, since they'd been enemies at the time. And the rest of the Thenns followed his lead.

That was something of a relief to Jon. The last thing he needed right now was more enemies. Instead, Sigorn and his surviving people had become allies.

But that wasn't what Sigorn was here to discuss today.

"When you brought us south of the Wall, we swore to stop raiding the villages of those who already live here," Sigorn said. "We have kept that promise. We have fought for you so that you could reclaim this castle of yours. But the land you've given us to live on… it will not sustain us through the winter. Perhaps if we'd had time to prepare, to build homes and dig caverns, to hunt and build up stores of meat… but we have not. We have nothing but what we managed to carry with us when we fled the shores of Hardhome."

"There is game in the forests, on the hills and fish in the lakes," Jon pointed out. "And I know for a fact that the hunting south of the Wall is far better than the meagre pickings found north of it. And there are holdfasts on the Gift as well, to provide shelter."

"True, but those holdfasts have been abandoned for too long, and all need to be rebuilt. And that's not something we can easily do now that winter is setting in. Especially since my people were never very good at building towers of stone. We lived in caves during the winters, not in castles. As for food… the animals we hunt are enough to survive on for now, but it won't be for much longer. The hunting parties must travel further afield all the time and when winter truly hits…"

"I have granted The Last Hearth, the old seat of House Umber, to the Free Folk," Jon reminded him. "They should have some provisions for winter as well."

"Aye, but under the command of Tormund Giantsbane," Sigorn said. "You made him their new Magnar… Lord, I mean. I don't have a problem with that, but my people and I won't follow him."

During the Battle for Winterfell, Tormund had killed Smalljon Umber, the previous Lord of the Last Hearth, who'd betrayed Rickon and handed him over to Ramsay Bolton. Rickon had died because of that betrayal, and none of the surviving Umbers had tried to stop it.

Jon would not forgive them for that.

So, after being declared King in the North, Jon had seized the Umbers' land and holdings and granted them to the Free Folk, on the understanding that they work alongside the smallfolk who lived on those lands, and kept to the agreements to work with them, rather than raiding and killing, as they had in the past. The smallfolk who wished to move elsewhere could do so; many had come to the Winter Town outside Winterfell. Those who stayed had to try to learn to live alongside the wildlings.

Tormund Giantsbane was now officially _Lord_ Tormund Giantsbane, the new Lord of the Last Hearth.

When Jon had first told Tormund that he intended to make him a Lord, the red-bearded wildling had found the idea hysterical. Then Tormund realised that, among 'southern lord' culture, this new lordship supposedly made him a much more acceptable match for Lady Brienne of Tarth. After that, he'd taken to the role with more enthusiasm. Jon had also pointed out that, beneath all the lordly airs and manners, (which Tormund still ignored,) and learning to read and write, (which, according to the maester at the Last Hearth, Tormund was actually making an effort to do, seeing it as a useful skill,) what being a lord really came down to was looking after and leading his people, something Tormund already did. In any case, the Free Folk needed to adapt to an extent, if they were to live amongst the Northerners, and the fact was that the Northern lords would find it far easier to relate to them if they could point to a Lord of the Free Folk.

"Just as long as you don't expect us to kneel, Jon Snow," Tormund had said. They would adapt to an extent, to the way the North did things, but only so far.

"You know I'd never ask you to do that," Jon had replied.

Tormund had slapped him hard on the back. "Aye, I know that. _King_ Jon Snow." He'd grinned. "I figure you have more than enough people kneeling before you these days anyway."

The titles didn't seem to mean much to the rest of the Free Folk, neither Jon's Kingship nor Tormund's Lordship. The Free Folk followed Tormund because he'd proven himself a leader long ago, and Jon had, more recently, proven himself as well, so they shrugged and accepted him as King in the North.

Tormund had accepted the people on the Last Hearth Lands as part of his responsibility as the new lord, and for the most part was doing a fair job of integrating them with the Free Folk. He had reported that he didn't think the Last Hearth had enough food stored to feed them all throughout the winter, unless that winter was particularly short, another issue that needed to be dealt with, but aside from that, Jon thought it was going fairly well.

Still, there were some problems. Earlier that day, one of the petitioners who came to Winterfell turned out to be a farmer from the Last Hearth Lands. He'd demanded that the King do something about the wildling bastard who'd stolen his daughter from their hut and taken her to the keep of the Last Hearth, and now refused to give her back.

"I went to see the new Lord, Lord Giantsbane," the farmer said. "He said the wildling and my daughter are happily married, and I should be pleased to have such a strong good-son."

Stealing women was part of the Free Folk culture, considered an important part of courtship. Jon hadn't outlawed it completely, though he had made a point to tell the Free Folk that rape was absolutely _not_ allowed, under any circumstances, and any stealing of women was only acceptable if the lady in question consented to being stolen.

And that had led to even more problems.

Several of the men of the Free Folk hated the new rules.

"They don't like anyone telling them what they can and can't do," Tormund had explained to Jon, after he killed the most outspoken of the protestors, and a second man had at rushed Jon with a sword.

"If they want to live south of the Wall, they'll learn. There are some rules they're just going to have to accept," Jon had replied, after cutting the second protestor down with Longclaw.

Tormund had two daughters of his own, and would kill anyone who harmed them. Most of the surviving adult wildlings who'd come south of the Wall were either parents, or had younger brothers and sisters who they were responsible for. After all, it was those with children who'd been more willing to listen to Jon's offer of a new life, free from the white walkers. So when they'd balked at the new rules, Jon had asked them, once again, to think about their children. To think about their daughters and younger sisters, and whether they'd rather live with the law that protected them from men who tried to hurt them.

The Free Folk had been more accepting of the new rules and laws after that, though there'd still been a few grumbles. Tormund agreed to enforce the rules among his people.

Jon had considered the angry farmer standing in front of him. If Tormund had already dealt with this, and the thief and the farmer's daughter were living together at the Last Hearth, then she probably hadn't been stolen against her will. Perhaps the farmer didn't know that, or perhaps he didn't care. Stealing women during courtship was a wildling thing, not something the farmer would be accustomed to.

"What does your daughter think of all this?" Jon asked. "Have you seen her? Spoken to her?"

"Well, she… I went and spoke to her when I demanded the wildling give her back," The farmer replied.

"And?"

"And what? It's not up to her, is it?"

"What did she say?"

The farmer scowled. "She said she wanted to stay with her new husband. But the thing is, I arranged a match for her with a trader I know, his son and my daughter. Only she's now complaining that the trader's son is a boring, weedy git with big ears, and she much prefers the wildling man who stole her. She… she even said that if I took her back and forced her to marry the trader's son, she'd slit his throat in the night, 'cause he wasn't worthy of her."

Jon hid a smile, which really wouldn't have been appropriate under the circumstances. It seemed that the farmer's daughter was picking up some wildling habits and ideas.

Jon remembered talking to Ygritte about the wildling courtship custom of stealing a woman. She'd declared that it was better than having her father arrange a marriage for her. That the man had to prove himself by being strong and quick enough to steal the girl he liked, and that the girl could always slit his throat if she decided he wasn't worthy of her.

Thoughts of Ygritte, and how things ended between them, made any desire to smile vanish.

 _We should have stayed in that cave,_ she'd said at the end. It was a nice idea, but realistically, it never would have worked. They'd have starved or ended up killed by white walkers in the end. And Jon couldn't have abandoned his brothers.

He looked down at the farmer. "Do you love your daughter?" he asked.

The farmer blinked. "Of course I love my daughter. That's not the point, is it?"

"You said she's happy with her new husband. Would you rather she was unhappy?"

"No, but –"

"If your daughter is happy in her new marriage, I see no reason to interfere with it."

The farmer gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. "He's a bloody wildling! Wildlings have been raiding our villages for as long as anyone can remember. They kill and rape and steal… how can I let my daughter be married to someone like that?" He glared at Jon. "How could you let them into our lands?"

Jon sighed. "The Long Night is coming, and with it come white walkers and their armies of dead men. We need the wildlings on our side, not as new additions to the white walkers' army. That is why I let them through. As to the raiding, they've agreed to stop doing that. If any of them continue to raid villages, or rape and kill people, they will be punished just the same as any man who commits such crimes." This seemed to be an argument Jon had to repeat an awful lot these days. Many people were concerned about the wildling presence, and the lack of action being taken against them.

"We need to stop seeing the wildlings as the enemy and start working with them," Jon continued. "I suggest that you start by getting to know your daughter's husband. If she cares for him as you said, you might even find that he's a good man." At least, he hoped so.

Jon sent the farmer away after that, still sputtering indignantly. He hoped the man took the advice he'd given, but had other things he needed to deal with, so didn't have the time to find out.

Jon returned his attention to the present, and the Magnar of Thenn standing before him.

"I don't have a problem with working alongside Tormund," Sigorn said, "but I won't follow him. And frankly, our presence in the Last Hearth lands isn't exactly easy. The Thenns do things too differently for the rest of the Free Folk. And the smallfolk, as you call them, those who already live on those lands? They're terrified of the Thenns, far more than they are of Tormund's people. I've seen his people show up at a village and spend an evening drinking and talking and comparing stories. Tormund Giantsbane always had a thing for telling a good story. But when my people show up, the smallfolk start screaming and running off. Most won't even talk to us. Even after we tried to assure them that we've promised to give up eating human meat, unless we're truly starving." He sounded a little indignant about that.

Jon suddenly had an image in his mind of a group of Thenns carrying swords and axes, chasing after the smallfolk and promising that they were not going to eat them.

He sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

It was good to hear about Tormund making an effort to integrate his people with those who already lived on the lands Jon had granted him. And it was good to hear that the Thenns were keeping to their promise to stop eating human meat. Although hearing that they'd had to _stop_ eating it probably concerned the smallfolk as much as the Thenns' appearance.

Most of the Free Folk didn't look that different from the Northerners, perhaps a bit… wilder, but still perfectly relatable once they all sat down around a campfire and started comparing stories over a flagon of wine.

The Thenns though, with their shaved heads and habit of scarring their own faces, did look a little different to the other Free Folk clans. They were a tough, warrior clan, and were also better organised and disciplined than the other clans. Many of them only spoke the Old Tongue. Seeing them stand around, silent, on watch, serious and unwilling to join in any of the socialising alongside Tormund's people probably didn't help.

"We're too different, not welcome on the Last Hearth lands, by either Free Folk or smallfolk, and the lands you gave us on the Gift don't have any suitable shelter or supplies to support us through winter," Sigorn was saying. "We agreed not to raid, or to eat human meat, and we won't, unless we have no other choice to survive, but I am responsible for my people, and we can't stay where we are now, so I came here to ask if you could grant us somewhere else to live."

Jon thought about it. "How many people do you have, Sigorn?" he asked. He wasn't sure of the Thenns numbers after the Battle.

Sigorn shrugged. "Around two hundred in all. Most of my people didn't want to leave Hardhome. Loboda convinced them that you planned to slit our throats as soon as we boarded those ships of yours. I thought it was worth the risk, but… most of my people were still arguing about it when the Others showed up. Most of the clan didn't make it onto the ships."

"Alright. Let me think about it, Magnar, and I'll get back to you with an answer as soon as I can."

The Magnar of Thenn bowed. "Your Grace," he said, to Jon's surprise. Apparently Sigorn was making an effort to learn something of the 'southern' customs, as they considered it.

As the Magnar left the Great Hall, and Ser Davos informed Jon that Sigorn had been the last petitioner for today, Jon leaned back in his seat considered the problem. Where could he relocate two hundred Thenns to?

There was the Dreadfort, he supposed, but no one really wanted to live there, not after they'd seen what was actually hidden in that place. Jon had ordered the contents of the lower levels burned. All the torture devices they'd found alongside human skins and other sickening, grisly trophies. Tormund, who'd gone with the party to check the place out, had agreed wholeheartedly with the order.

The Thenns were less squeamish than the rest of them, since they'd been cannibals up until recently, but Sigorn had been with them at the Dreadfort too, and he was horrified by what they'd found. Sending the Thenns there… it could well be seen as an insult or punishment of some kind.

There were no supplies left at the Dreadfort, in any case. After they'd torched the dungeons, they'd stripped the castle of all the useable supplies, food stores, fuel, gold and silver, and brought it back to Winterfell.

If they survived until spring, Jon would need to figure out something to do with the Dreadfort.

Or perhaps he'd just let the Hornwoods decide whether they wanted to keep the castle or raze it to the ground. He'd granted House Hornwood the entirety of the lands formerly held by the Boltons, as a reward for their loyalty. They'd sent two hundred men to join the Battle for Winterfell, and were the only Northern house aside from House Mormont to do so. Most of the other Houses had simply refused the call or ignored the summons altogether. In any case, the Bolton lands and Hornwood lands were right next to each other, so granting it to the Hornwoods made sense.

Ghost whined softly, drawing Jon's attention to the direwolf lying beside his chair. Ghost put his head on Jon's lap, and the King scratched him behind the ears.

It still felt strange to Jon, sitting there on the high seat, behind the table on the dais, ruler of Winterfell and King in the North. This was his father's seat, not his. And after Eddard Stark, it was Robb's, then Bran's… Jon was never meant to end up here. And yet here he was, with a crown on his head. The Northern Lords had chosen him as their king. He was immensely grateful that he and Robb had been raised together, and Lord Stark had taught them both about ruling and leadership, otherwise he'd have been lost.

He'd grown used to command at Castle Black, of course, but that was just command of the Night's Watch. Now he had the entire North to rule over, and more than that, it was a North that had been severely wounded by the Ironborn raids and the Boltons' sadistic rule. Added to that was the fact that they were still reeling from the loss of all the men who'd died after following Robb south and getting killed in battle, or butchered at the Red Wedding.

And now, before there was any chance for the North to heal its wounds, winter had set in. And not just an ordinary winter. As he kept reminding everyone, the Long Night would be here soon. Darkness falling over the land as it hadn't done for eight thousand years. A Long Night that would only end when and if they defeated the white walkers.

And they weren't even close to being ready for that.

Jon took the crown from his head, the crown the Northern lords had insisted on having made for him, and placed it on the table in front of him.

The Thenns had adjusted better than most of the Free Folk to the ideas of the 'south', as they called anything south of the Wall. Unlike the other clans, the Thenns had always had their own lord, the Magnar, and it was a hereditary position. So they could understand that the Northern lordships changed hands in the same way.

The other Free Folk clans chose their own leaders based on strength and leadership ability of the individual, more akin to the way in which the Night's Watch chose a new Lord Commander after the previous one had died. Except the clans didn't actually vote to decide on the matter.

Intellectually, the clans understood that the Northern lordships were hereditary, but that didn't mean that it felt right to them. "Why should a son inherit a title he hasn't earned?" they'd asked.

Still as far as the Free Folk were concerned, Jon _had_ earned his title as King, and Tormund had earned his Lordship, so they didn't have a problem with that.

Jon was about to get up and leave the Great Hall when two men from a scouting party strode in through the doors. They approached the dais and knelt.

"Your Grace," one of the scouts spoke.

"Rise," King Jon told them. One of the problems with being King was constantly having to tell people to stand up in his presence.

He didn't tell them not to kneel though. If he was going to lead his people through the Long Night, he needed to use all the authority he had over them. And kneeling was… well, it was part of their culture, as he'd explained to the Free Folk, the last time they'd laughed upon seeing it. He'd never considered kneeling as a strange thing to do, before meeting the wildlings, but trying to explain to them why 'southerners' knelt all the time… He couldn't actually think of a good reason for it, beyond it being a cultural thing, as a way of showing respect, fealty and submission. And although he wouldn't ask the Free Folk to kneel, he did ask them not to laugh when the 'southerners' did it.

These scouts were Winterfell guardsmen though, not wildlings. Jon recognised their faces, but couldn't recall either of their names. They weren't men he'd grown up with. Most of Winterfell's loyal men from his childhood had been killed, one way or another, long before Jon was crowned King in the North.

"Your Grace," the first man said, once they'd both gotten to their feet. "We were out on patrol, and we found a girl on the road. She was riding this way. Nothing unusual about that, but when she saw us, she bolted on her horse for the trees, which struck us as somewhat suspicious. So we chased after her."

Once word spread that the Boltons had been defeated, and the Starks were back, more and more smallfolk started returning to the Winter Town outside Winterfell. Especially now that winter was setting in. The town was becoming more crowded every day, and plenty of people were walking and riding around the area as a result. Most didn't flee at the sight of the guards though.

"And?" Jon asked.

"Well, we caught her, and she seemed ready to fight, until she heard that we were your men, Your Grace. She seemed to sort of sag in relief after that, actually. The Captain asked her who she was and why she fled, but she wouldn't say. She just asked for an audience with the King. We told her she could've just joined the other petitioners, but… well, I'm not sure she knew about that. The Captain sent us on ahead to let you know, and ask what you want us to do with her. They should be behind us."

Jon frowned. "I'll speak with her. Bring her in when she arrives."

Both men bowed and then started to leave.

"Wait," Jon changed his mind. He got up and walked around the table, Ghost following at his heels. "I may as well come with you," he explained, answering the curious looks they gave him. "The rest of the petitions are done for today anyway."

They left the Great Hall and walked out to the courtyard by Winterfell's main gates. The rest of the scouting party arrived through the gates not much later, the girl with them. One of the scouts walked forward to help her dismount, but she ignored his hand and swung down from her horse without assistance, landing neatly on her feet.

The action reminded Jon of Arya, his little sister whom he hadn't seen in years.

The rest of the party dismounted and knelt. The girl noticed and hastily knelt alongside them.

"Rise," Jon said.

They stood up. Jon looked at the girl, who was more a young woman, actually. She couldn't have been more than a couple of years younger than he was.

She was tall, skinny, had dark hair tied back in a braid and looked both nervous and defiant. Jon felt a jolt of recognition as he looked into her grey eyes, though he couldn't quite place her. Her clothes were slightly worn, but rich enough to suggest she was highborn. And… there was definitely something familiar about her.

"Who are you, my lady?" Jon asked.

She swallowed. "Lady Alys Karstark, Your Grace," she said. "I wasn't sure if you'd remember me, but we have met before. It was years ago though. My father brought me to Winterfell hoping I could charm your brother, Robb. He'd hoped to arrange a match between us, but… well, I was six, and had no idea what to do. But I danced with both you and Robb. He was charming and courteous. You were sullen." She paused, then continued quickly. "Not that you were a bad dancer, for an eight year old, but… well, you were brooding, a lot."

Now that she mentioned it, he did recall something like that… well, he supposed that's why she seemed vaguely familiar.

Ghost stepped forward, and Lady Alys stared at the direwolf for a second, gulped, and then staggered back, almost crashing into her horse.

Jon put a hand on Ghost's back. "This is Ghost," he told her. "He won't hurt you. Not unless you came here intending harm to me or mine."

He doubted she'd come here intending them harm though, not when she was travelling alone, without an escort. Nevertheless, the Karstarks were one of the few Northern Houses who had not come to Winterfell to pledge fealty to Jon as the new King in the North. A few Houses, such as the Flints and the Reeds, had sent ravens carrying messages that pledged fealty instead, but from the Karstarks, he'd received nothing. One of the many things Jon still had to deal with, but hadn't gotten round to yet.

The Karstarks had once been one of their most loyal bannermen, but had since betrayed House Stark, and joined the Boltons in the recent battle, led by Alys' only surviving brother, Harald, who had died in the fighting.

Perhaps she was here for her brother's bones? He would not begrudge her that. And they could use the opportunity to discuss House Karstark's future while she was here. With her brothers and father dead, Lady Alys was the new head of her House. He hoped that her respectful manner, and addressing him as 'Your Grace', was a positive sign, that they could put the past behind them and move on. He really needed all the North to be united for the war to come.

"My men tell me you came to speak with me, Lady Alys," he said. "So tell me, why are you here?"

Lady Alys tore her gaze away from the direwolf. She swallowed, and then met his gaze. "I came here to ask for help, Your Grace." She paused. "Our Houses, Stark and Karstark… we are kin, bound by blood, and in the past, by honour as well. That honour was broken when your brother killed my father, even though my father joined his army and rode south with him, pledged King Robb his allegiance and his men." There was anger in her voice now. "Your brother cut his head off for killing Lannisters, even though the whole point of riding south was to kill Lannisters – "

Jon cut her off then. "It wasn't for killing Lannisters that your father was executed. It was because your father murdered unarmed, innocent children. The fact that they were Lannisters was irrelevant. They were innocent boys, hostages who were locked up in a prison cell with no chance of running or fighting back."

She hesitated, and then shrugged. "I only heard what my brother, Harald, told me when he brought our forces back to Karhold. He was furious, as were our soldiers. Everyone felt that King Robb had betrayed them. That the Starks had betrayed us. That's why my brother sided with Ramsay Bolton against you."

"And now your brother is dead and the Boltons defeated. Their House destroyed. And your House did not come to Winterfell with the other Northern Lords to swear fealty. You said you came here to ask for help, Lady Alys, yet instead it seems that you'd prefer to air the grievances between our Houses."

"I'm just trying to understand my position. With everything that's happened of late between Stark and Karstark… I wasn't sure if I should come here at all, if you might consider there to be a blood feud between us. My brother certainly did. But now he's dead and I am the new head of my House. I feared that if I came here, you might…" she trailed off.

Then she took a deep breath and continued. "But your father was always honourable. And never executed a man without listening to his last words. I thought that might give me the chance to plead for help, at least. It's just… after everything that's happened, I feared that if I came to you, you might just execute me simply for belonging to House Karstark." She swiped a hand over her eyes and blinked several times, willing tears away and refusing to acknowledge them.

Arya used to do that; swiping her tears away when she was upset.

Jon frowned. "You are not responsible for your father's crime, nor your brother's decision to side with House Bolton. They made their own choices, and paid for them. I don't consider there to be a blood feud between our Houses, Lady Alys, certainly not if you and your men will pledge fealty to me and my sister. I need the North united, not fighting amongst ourselves."

She took a deep breath, let it out. "Good. It's just… well, I didn't know. So much has happened…"

"You said you needed help."

"I do. I was afraid to come here, because I didn't know how you'd react, but in the end I came here anyway, because… well, frankly, I have nowhere else to turn. When we received the raven telling us of your victory, I told my uncles that we should bend the knee. They argued that the Starks betrayed us and that you would likely kill us on sight. My great-uncle Arnolf was named Castellan when my father and brothers went off to fight in King Robb's war, and Harald left him as Castellan when he went to join the Boltons, but once we got word of my brother's death, Arnolf declared himself the new Lord of Karhold, and decided to marry me to his son, my uncle Cregan, to secure his position."

Lady Alys raised her head and looked Jon straight in the eyes, pride and defiance in her gaze. "I refused. I am the rightful head of House Karstark now, not great-uncle Arnolf. And Cregan is an old man past fifty. I have no desire to marry him, just so they can steal my birthright, and get rid of me once I've given him a son, if I prove to be 'too much to handle'. They marched me out to stand before the heart tree in our godswood, and I refused to say the words. So they had me locked up until I agreed to change my mind. I realised my only chance was to escape and come here. So I… pretended I was cowed, so that they'd let me out, and then I managed to escape and take a horse from the stables, and I fled."

She looked away. "I suspect they're not far behind. But that is why I need your help, Your Grace." She went to one knee again. "If you will help me reclaim my home and birthright, I pledge my allegiance, the allegiance of House Karstark, to you, King Jon. If there is no blood feud between us, me and mine shall serve you and yours faithfully, from this day forth. Just… please, help me. Don't let my uncles take me back to Karhold. Help me take my home back."

That plea reminded Jon of Sansa, and how she'd been when she'd run to him at Castle Black. The attempts at a forced marriage too.

"Rise, Lady Alys," Jon told her, leaning down to take her arm and help her to her feet. Then he released her.

"I accept your oath of fealty. And of course I shall help you reclaim your home from your uncles. But for now, you'll stay here, as a guest of Winterfell. I shall deal with your uncles when they show up, if they are indeed on your trail, as you said."

He called for servants to show Lady Alys to a guest room. Then he left the courtyard and walked through the castle grounds, people bowing their heads to him as he passed, Ghost padding silently beside him.

He was mentally exhausted. Dealing with all the petitions, sorting out all the problems and grievances his people laid at his feet…

"I think I'll head out to the practice yard," he told his direwolf. Hopefully there'd be someone there he could spar with.

* * *

 **Author's note: I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who's read, reviewed, followed or favourited this story. I've never tried posting a fan fiction story before this one, so it's nice to know that people like the story. :)**

 **The Alys Karstark thing is based on what happened in the books, in 'A Dance with dragons'. Alys hasn't turned up in the TV series so far, but I could see something like this happening while Jon tries to deal with ruling the North and the aftermath of everything that's happened recently.**

 **On a different note, I've been wondering what to call Bran's new direwolf. It took him a while to choose 'Summer' as the name for his first direwolf in the books, so it might take time for him to pick a name for the new wolf. But when he does… any ideas for what the wolf's name should be? (If no one suggests anything, I'll just pick out a name myself, but I thought I'd see if the people reading this story would like to make any suggestions about the direwolf's name.)**


	5. New Friends: Sansa I

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 **Chapter 5: New Friends**

 **Sansa I**

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The dogs barked excitedly as Sansa approached the kennels, a bucket of meat from the kitchens in one hand.

Beside her, Lady Brienne eyed the animals warily, one hand on the pommel of her sword.

Sansa wasn't worried though. Initially, she had been very careful around these dogs, only feeding them through the bars, never getting too close, but over time, she knew she'd gained their absolute trust and loyalty, mostly by simply being kind to them, feeding them regularly and never leaving them to starve.

So now she unlocked the gate to the kennels and stepped inside.

The dogs surrounded Sansa as she reached into the bucket, pulled out a piece of meat and tossed it to the ground. Two of the dogs dived for it, snarled at each other in challenge, and then one backed off whilst the victor took the meat off to eat in peace. The rest of the dogs looked up at Sansa expectantly. She smiled, took out the next piece of meat and gave it to them.

After hearing about the exact manner of Ramsay Bolton's death, several people had tried to convince Jon to have the dogs killed. Especially after they'd discovered the half-eaten, half-rotted remains of a woman and a baby at the back of the kennels. Unmistakeable evidence that Ramsay was not the first human they'd eaten.

But ever since she'd fed Ramsay to them, and watched the dogs tear that monster apart as he screamed, Sansa had developed a certain fondness for the animals that had helped her get her revenge. Besides, knowing how they'd been mistreated, abused and starved, she couldn't help but see them as fellow victims of Ramsay. And in the end, they'd all made him pay for what he'd done.

So, Sansa asked Jon not to have the dogs killed, and to let her keep them instead. He'd been sceptical, pointing out that they'd been trained by a monster, but had eventually relented, so long as Sansa promised to be careful. Which she was. It was one of the reasons she always had someone with her, usually Brienne, when she went to feed them.

She'd quickly became the dogs' new favourite person. Unlike Ramsay, Sansa didn't abuse them or starve them. And so they barked happily and wagged their tails when she approached. And sometimes… it was strange, but sometimes it was almost as though she could actually get a sense of what they were feeling, flashes of thought and emotions that were not her own.

She wasn't sure what to make of that, so decided to simply ignore it.

Once they'd been fed, Sansa locked the kennels again and went to return the bucket to the kitchens. She was crossing the main courtyard when the castle gates opened and a party of riders came through.

At the head of the group was Jon, riding a grey stallion and wearing the cloak Sansa had made for him at Castle Black. His great white direwolf, Ghost, padded alongside the horse, and several other Winterfell men were with them.

Jon swung down from the saddle and handed the horse's reins to a stable boy who ran forward to take them. The other riders dismounted as well, though not all of them willingly.

"Get your fucking hands off me!" an old man, who looked to be past fifty, shouted as he was pulled from the saddle by two guardsmen. His hands were bound and he looked furious. "I am the heir to Karhold! How dare you treat me this way?"

As Sansa walked closer, she noticed that Jon's party seemed to have several prisoners with them. And one dead body. And several hounds.

Four of the prisoners seemed subdued, but the old man glared at Jon with something akin to hatred. "Bastard!" he shouted. "You have no right to hold us. I demand that you release us immediately, and return my niece to me!"

"You are in no position to make demands," Jon said calmly, but with an edge of anger to his voice.

"What's going on?" Sansa asked Jon quietly, once she and Brienne had reached the group.

Jon looked at her. "Cregan Karstark here," he said, indicating the angry old man, "thought he'd hunt down Lady Alys and drag her back to Karhold with him. I warned the men to be on watch, so we got word of his little hunting party and rode out to intercept them before he could reach Winterfell. Cregan didn't take too kindly to being stopped. One of his men-at-arms attacked us and I had to kill him."

Sansa supposed that explained the dead body, which was being carried away to be burned. All dead bodies were being burned nowadays.

"After that I had Cregan and his men arrested," Jon continued.

"Where is Alys? I know you're hiding her here. You have no right," Cregan spat. "She was promised to me. Give her back and let me and my men go, and we just might agree to leave you in peace. And maybe my lord father won't retaliate against you."

"Your father is not a lord," Jon said. "He is a castellan. Lady Alys is the Lady of Karhold."

"Alys is my fiancée."

"Alys has no wish to marry you, and is currently staying here as a guest. You, on the other hand, are a prisoner."

"Is that the way of it then? You keeping her here for yourself? Ramsay Bolton warned us you were a thief, bastard. Stealing women away from the men they rightfully belong to, like some filthy wildling. But I suppose that's no surprise, we've all heard the wildlings are your new best friends. How could you let them past the Wall, traitor?" Cregan ranted, until one of the guards got tired of it and backhanded the man. He would have done more, but Jon stopped him.

"Enough! Take him away and lock him in a cell," Jon ordered. "I'll speak to him in a few days, once he's had a chance to calm down and think about his position."

Cregan was dragged away, still shouting insults.

Jon turned his attention to the other prisoners, the men Cregan had brought with him, Sansa assumed. After a moment, Jon ordered the other prisoners locked in cells as well, for the time being.

Sansa was only half listening though. Her attention was caught by the sight of Petyr Baelish, on the other side of the courtyard. He'd been watching the scene, and had a contemplative look on his face as he observed Cregan Karstark and his men being dragged away.

One of the Vale knights approached Baelish, Ser… something Corbray. (She couldn't recall the man's first name. Lyn, maybe?) She did, however, recognise him as one of Littlefinger's agents. Back in the Vale, Lord Baelish had told Sansa that he was paying Corbray to openly oppose him, and join any group that opposed him, in order to spy on them and report back to Littlefinger, so that he could counteract any plans they made…

Was Corbray doing the same thing now? He appeared to be arguing with Littlefinger, and was looking at him with disdain, one hand on the hilt of his sword. But it was probably all an act, just in case anyone was paying attention.

She didn't know what Lord Baelish was doing, but she suspected that Corbray was still taking orders from him, whatever those orders were.

Corbray stalked off. Littlefinger glanced again in the direction that Cregan Karstark had been taken, before leaving the courtyard in the opposite direction.

Sansa watched him walk away, gripped by a sudden fear. She had warned Lord Baelish not to harm Jon, but the fact remained that Littlefinger was an expert manipulator, and obsessed with attaining two things; Sansa and the Iron Throne. Baelish was a long way off from being able to crown himself king of anything, but she was certain that he was still plotting to gain more power.

And if Littlefinger wanted power in the North, Jon was the most obvious obstacle to that goal.

What if Sansa's threat hadn't been enough?

What if Baelish believed he could get rid of Jon in some convoluted way that made him appear completely innocent, and thought that he could make Sansa believe it too? She'd told him that if Jon died, she would kill Baelish too, even if there wasn't a scrap of evidence implicating him, and she'd meant it.

That didn't mean that Littlefinger was willing to give up on his scheming. He might still believe he could get away with it.

And if he did believe that, and tried to get rid of her brother, no amount of vengeance after the fact would bring Jon back.

Even if Littlefinger _had_ listened to her, and wasn't plotting Jon's death, she was sure he was plotting _something_ … she just didn't know what.

She'd need to find out. But Baelish was hardly going to tell her what he was planning. Not if it was something he knew she wouldn't like.

"I suppose I'd better tell Lady Alys that her uncle's here," Jon said, drawing Sansa's attention back to him.

Alys.

The Karstarks.

What if they were part of Baelish's scheme?

The Karstarks had betrayed Robb, then later sided with Ramsay Bolton against Jon and Sansa. And yet now, all of a sudden, Alys Karstark, the Lady of Karhold, was conveniently here in Winterfell.

Jon had told Sansa Alys' story, about her running away from her uncles, and pledging fealty to Jon as King in the North, but what if all of that was a lie? What if Lord Baelish promised the Karstarks vengeance… and perhaps the position of Lords Paramount of the North, once Baelish took the throne? She knew that, in the short term, he'd intended for Sansa to rule the North. But she also knew that, eventually, he meant to have Sansa as his queen, which would mean keeping her in King's Landing with him, in the end. And that meant he'd need to plan for someone else to be the Warden of the North. Someone he could control, or at least manipulate.

On the other hand, perhaps Alys Karstark had been telling the truth, and Littlefinger's plots had nothing to do with the Karstarks at all.

Sansa bit her lip and tapped the fingers of her free hand against her leg, worrying about what may or may not be a plot… but how could she find out?

She hadn't actually spoken to Alys Karstark since she'd arrived, but now she very much felt the need to become acquainted with the other woman. She needed to try and determine whether Alys was being honest or not.

So she turned to Jon. "I'll come with you," she said. "To speak to Alys, I mean."

Jon nodded, and turned to say something to one of his remaining guardsmen.

Sansa turned to Brienne.

"Lady Brienne," Sansa began, holding out the now empty bucket. "Would you mind returning this to the kitchens for me?"

Perhaps it was an odd request to ask of one's sworn shield, but Brienne took the bucket without comment.

"Thank you," Sansa said.

Brienne left, after telling Sansa that she would be in the practice yard later if Sansa had need of her.

Jon had turned his attention to the direwolf at his side. As Sansa watched, something seemed to pass between them. A look, a… knowing… she wasn't really sure how to explain it. But she had the sense that there was some kind of silent communication going on.

"Go on, Ghost," Jon said, nodding towards the still open main gates.

Ghost turned and trotted towards the gates, breaking into a run as he approached. The guardsmen simply made sure to step out of his way.

"Where's he going?" Sansa asked.

"Hunting," Jon said.

Sansa frowned. There was plenty of food in the castle. Why would he need to leave to hunt?

Jon noticed her expression and explained. "He needs to run and hunt on his own from time to time. He's a direwolf, not a dog. He has to stretch his legs and just," he waved a hand. "You know, run free in the wild sometimes."

"Oh. I guess I wouldn't know about that. Lady… Lady wasn't much more than a pup when I lost her."

Even after all these years, and all the awful things that happened after that, the loss of her direwolf was still painful. Maybe it shouldn't have been, not after everything else, but Lady had been so much more than a pet. More than a companion. She didn't think Father had really quite understood that. Maybe if he had, he'd have fought harder against King Robert's order to have Lady killed. At the time, she'd blamed Arya for it. It took a long time for her to learn better. That it was Robert Baratheon and Cersei Lannister and most of all _Joffrey_ who had been to blame.

But by the time Sansa had finally realised that, Father was dead and Arya had disappeared. She'd never had the chance to tell her sister that she'd been right to hate Joffrey all along.

"I'm sorry," Jon said.

"Why?" Sansa looked at Jon curiously. "It wasn't your doing."

They started walking back to the keep together, the gently falling snow swirling around them on the breeze. The courtyard was fairly busy today, and plenty of other people were going about their business, bowing or nodding respectfully to Jon and Sansa as they passed by.

"You know… Ghost knew it, when Lady was killed." Jon said after a minute.

That surprised Sansa. She stopped walking and turned to Jon with what was no doubt an incredulous look on her face. "He knew? But… How? You were at the Wall."

"Aye, I was at the Wall, and so was Ghost. Even so, I could tell that… Ghost somehow knew when one of his sisters was killed." Jon paused. "He knew when Grey Wind was killed as well. He couldn't sense him anymore, and he knew that one of his brothers was dead."

She didn't know what to make of that.

They both started walking again before Sansa replied. "Well, they're all dead now, except Ghost."

"No," Jon said, surprising her again. "Nymeria, Arya's wolf, she's still alive, somewhere."

"But… How do you know?"

He looked uncertain, and ran a hand through his hair. "I have… dreams, sometimes. Wolf dreams, where I am Ghost, and I remember them when I wake up. And Ghost knows. He can… sense… his siblings somehow. I don't know how, he just can."

Sansa thought about that for a bit. Truthfully, she hadn't had Lady for very long. It had felt like her own heart was being ripped out through her throat on the night that the direwolf was killed, but she'd never sensed any sort of deeper connection. Perhaps she would have, if Lady had lived longer, or perhaps that was just Jon and Ghost.

"Well, we both know that Shaggydog is dead. But what about Bran's wolf? The one he never got around to naming before he fell?"

"Bran's wolf is dead too," Jon said, sadly.

"Oh." Had he felt that as well?

If Bran's direwolf was dead… It didn't necessarily mean that Bran was dead too, but it didn't say anything good about his chances. Jon had told her about how Bran had gone north of the Wall, with Hodor, the two Reed children and his direwolf. None of them had been heard from since.

When they reached the door, Jon opened it and held it for her, indicating that Sansa should precede him. The castle corridors were noticeably warmer than outside.

"There's something I'd like your opinion on," Jon told her.

"Oh?"

"You remember what I told you about the Thenns?"

"One of the wildling clans, but they want to move elsewhere…"

"Aye, I was thinking of arranging a match between Lady Alys and Sigorn, the Magnar of Thenn. It could help solve both their problems. But, given that Alys' troubles involved her uncles trying to force her into marriage… and it was bad enough that she had to run away… I'm not sure if she'd be comfortable with being pushed into another betrothal so soon."

"And you're asking me because I know what it's like to be in her position?" Come to think of it, that might be a good enough excuse for why she suddenly decided to befriend Alys. And it might help to throw off suspicion, if Alys really was one of Littlefinger's agents.

"Well, a bit because of that. But also just because I value your opinion."

Sansa looked at her brother and shrugged. "If you think it's a good idea, then I'd say you should suggest the match, but… make sure you let her know that it's a suggestion, not something she'll be forced into. Let her have some time to get to know this Sigorn, as well, and tell her that it will be her choice whether or not she actually decides to go through with the marriage." That should help, if Alys' story was true. And if it wasn't true, it would give Sansa more time to figure out what the other woman's game really was, and if she had anything to do with Littlefinger's schemes.

They reached the rooms Alys was staying in, and Jon knocked on the door.

After a moment, a young woman opened the door. Lady Alys Karstark, presumably. She was about Sansa's age, maybe a year or two older. She had grey eyes, Stark eyes, which wasn't too surprising, seeing as the Karstarks were an offshoot of the Stark line. Her long dark hair was loose around her shoulders, and her clothing, suitable for a highborn maiden, but nothing special in terms of fashions, looked like it didn't quite fit her, like it had been borrowed, and no one had had time to adjust it or sew her new clothes of her own yet.

"Your Grace," Alys said in surprise, on seeing who it was.

"Lady Alys," Jon replied. He stepped back and indicated Sansa. "This is my sister, Princess Sansa."

"We thought you'd like to know that your uncle Cregan has been captured," Sansa said. "I just saw him being dragged off to the dungeons."

"Oh? Well, that's a good thing. Is that what you came to speak to me about, Your Grace?" Alys asked.

"In part," Jon said. "May we come in? There's something I'd like to discuss with you."

"Of course," Alys replied. She stepped back and invited them in.

The room was on the small side, but it was only a receiving room, with a fireplace in the centre of the wall to the left of the door, a window on the far wall, and a second door in the wall to the right, which lead to the bedchamber. The fire was lit, and there were four chairs arranged around a small table on which a pitcher of water and some wooden cups stood. There were two fur rugs on the floor.

The three of them took chairs, and Jon poured them each a cup of water as he spoke to Alys about his suggestion that she marry Sigorn of Thenn.

Sansa accepted her cup of water and watched Alys, trying to figure out if the other woman was playing some sort of game or not. She'd learned a great deal in King's Landing, and later, under Littlefinger's tutelage in the Vale, about just how skilled people could be when it came to lying and manipulation to get what they wanted, but… Alys had been in the North all this time. It was unlikely that she'd have needed to learn deception as an art form in the way that people in the south seemed to.

Jon finished outlining his idea and Alys sat there, frowning down at her hands.

"Thenns… Aren't they the fierce-looking ones with bald heads and scarred faces?" Alys asked, uncertainly, looking up to meet Jon's gaze.

Jon nodded. "They're a tribe from a region at the Northern edge of the Frostfangs. For thousands of years they've lived in a hidden valley up there, but with the threat from the white walkers, they were forced to abandon their home and move south. There's only around two hundred of them left now, and they don't get on too well with most of the other Free Folk. They've lived apart from them for too long, and developed their own culture and customs."

"I heard that… they also eat people."

"They've agreed not to do that anymore."

"But they used to."

"Aye, but… Look, from what I understand…" Jon paused, then started again. "You have to remember that they lived in the _very_ far North. They've mostly lived apart from other people for thousands of years, having more conflict with the giants than any other humans. And food that far North was scarce, especially during harsh winters. From their perspective, it would have been stupid to waste meat, even human meat, when their people were starving. Over time, it just stopped being a taboo to them. To them, other people were either idiots for choosing to starve because they refused to eat human flesh, or else the Thenns considered them soft men who'd never experienced harsh winters and real starvation."

"I guess we're all soft then."

"Aye, none of us have ever known what it is to starve. Truthfully though, I don't think Sigorn has much experience with it either. It's been a long summer for everyone. But once the Thenns no longer had a taboo around cannibalism, they started eating the flesh of their defeated enemies, even when they weren't starving. Because even if it wasn't winter, they still considered it a waste of meat to just burn the body."

"Lovely. You realise I've just lost my appetite?"

Jon shrugged. "You asked. And you should know something about them if you're to marry Sigorn, their Magnar."

"Magnar?"

"It means 'Lord', in the Old Tongue," Jon explained. "It may surprise you, but the Thenns are actually quite sophisticated compared to the rest of the Free Folk clans. They have lords and laws, and they used to mine tin and copper to make bronze, and forge their own weapons and armour. The Magnar inherits his title from his father, just as our lordships are handed down the family line. They look fierce, and they are different, but they also understand exactly how important it is for them to work with us and adapt to our culture, now that they're south of the Wall."

"Which is why they promised to stop eating people?" Alys asked.

"Aye," Jon agreed. "They understand that it's a problem for us, even if it isn't to them, so they won't eat human flesh unless they're truly starving."

"Hmmm."

"They're a proud and brave warrior people, well disciplined, but struggle to get along with the other Free Folk. Sigorn asked if there was another place his clan could move to, and I think his men could help you hold Karhold once we've retaken it, seeing as you said yourself you're not sure how many of your people you can trust, while the question of who's in charge is in any doubt."

Alys got to her feet and walked over to gaze out the window, her arms crossed over her chest. "And what if I don't want to marry this Sigorn of Thenn?" she asked.

"I have no intention of forcing you to marry him against your will, Alys," Jon said, glancing at Sansa, before returning his attention to the girl standing by the window. "I'm merely suggesting that this match could help you both. I'd like you to spend some time with Sigorn, get to know him, and then you can decide together whether or not you want to marry."

Alys turned to face them again. She met Jon's gaze for a long moment, then tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and returned to her seat. She looked at Sansa, then returned her attention to Jon.

"Alright," Alys said. "I'll meet Sigorn and spend some time with him. You said he's at Winterfell now as well?"

"Aye," Jon said, getting to his feet, "but I still have to talk to him about this match. I came to ask what you thought of it first."

Alys seemed pleased by that. Then she laughed. "So he might not wish to marry me in any case?"

"I doubt that very much, my lady. But if you'll excuse me, I shall go and suggest it to him now."

"I'll stay here," Sansa said in response to Jon's questioning look.

Jon left the room, and Sansa returned her attention to Alys. Neither of them spoke for a minute.

"You know, I've actually been forced into marriage before," Sansa said.

Alys blinked in surprise. "Oh? Who… wait, Ramsay Bolton?"

Sansa nodded. "He was the worst one, but not the first. My other husband was Tyrion Lannister, the Imp. And we were both forced into that by his grasping family. Because apparently some people will do anything for power."

Sansa picked up her cup of water and took a sip, regarding the other woman.

"Before that," Sansa continued, "I was betrothed to Joffrey Baratheon. Who wasn't actually a Baratheon, but nobody knew that at the time. He was actually the bastard son of Cersei Lannister and her twin brother, Jaime."

"I heard that," Alys said. "But I thought it was just a rumour."

"I'm pretty sure it was true. If you'd ever met them, you'd know that Joffrey was _nothing_ like that old fat king who was supposedly his father. And I do mean absolutely nothing like him. Not in looks, or temperament, or interests, or fighting ability, or… well, _anything_. Joffrey was Lannister through and through. The only thing they had in common was that they were both terrible kings."

"So, you were betrothed to Joffrey… but you didn't marry him in the end, did you? I heard he married Margaery Tyrell."

"He did. And then he was poisoned at his own wedding feast."

"I heard about that too. Wait… did…" Alys hesitated, then leaned forward and lowered her voice to almost a whisper. "Did you kill him? I heard that you were blamed for it, but…"

"No, I didn't kill him. It was actually Lord Baelish who had him killed. Not directly of course, but he manipulated the situation and had some other people do it for him."

"Who's Lord Baelish?" Alys asked, frowning.

"The short, slim, dark haired man with the mockingbird sigil."

There was no comprehension on Alys' face.

"He also goes by 'Littlefinger'," Sansa continued.

Alys shook her head. "I still don't know who that is."

Sansa took another sip of water. She didn't think Alys was lying… or at least, if she was, she was very good at it.

If Alys was a skilled liar, that made her more dangerous… but why lie about simply not knowing who Lord Baelish was? If the Karstarks were working with him, they might be seen together, or writing to each other at some point, and a casual acquaintance could explain all that without implicating anyone in any deeper plot.

Since she couldn't see any reason for the lie, Sansa decided that Alys was probably telling the truth, which would mean that she wasn't part of Littlefinger's schemes, or at least wasn't part of it yet.

Probably.

"I suppose it doesn't matter," Sansa said finally, "but Lord Baelish is effectively in control of the Vale forces at the moment. He's not really trustworthy though, so if he shows up and starts trying to offer you something… well, don't trust him."

Alys frowned. "Okay…"

Sansa changed the subject. "Anyway, I'm glad Joffrey's dead though. He cut my father's head off and called it mercy. And then he took me up to the ramparts and forced me to look at it. And he had his Kingsguard beat me whenever he was annoyed about something. Trust me. His death was definitely a good thing. Ramsay Bolton was worse than him though, the things he did…"

 _No_ , she thought, swallowing, a sickening feeling in her stomach. _No, I don't want to talk about that_.

Sansa cleared her throat before continuing. "Anyway, I did kill _him_ , in the end. Did you hear about that?"

"I heard… some of the servants here said that you fed him to his own hounds. And then you decided to keep the dogs as pets yourself."

"Well it wasn't their fault that their former master was an evil monster. But yes, I fed him to his hounds and watched him scream. And I'd do the same thing again to anyone who tried to hurt what's left of my family." Her voice hardened on that last part.

She searched Alys' face, looking for any signs of deception, maybe worry at being caught, perhaps anger at her own father's death… Alys' father had been beheaded by Robb, after all. Even if she wasn't working with Littlefinger, she might still be looking for revenge.

Alys did seem a bit disturbed by the way in which Sansa had killed Ramsay, but then, quite a few people had seemed rather disturbed by that. Even when they admitted that Ramsay had deserved it.

Still, nothing about Alys Karstark seemed to leap out as being suspicious, as far as Sansa could tell.

"Wow," Alys said, unaware of Sansa's musings. "You know, I have to admit, your experiences with men are worse than mine." Then she stood up. "I have an idea. Do you practice archery?"

Sansa blinked in surprise, momentarily thrown. "Archery? No. My lady mother didn't consider that to be something that was acceptable for a girl to learn." Not that it had ever stopped Arya.

"Well, I practice archery, and right now I think it would be really satisfying to shoot arrows at a target, whilst pretending the target is my Uncle Cregan's head." She shrugged. "Or Great-uncle Arnolf's. Why don't you come to the practice yard with me? You can pretend the targets are Joffrey's and Ramsay's heads."

There was something appealing about that idea…

Sansa agreed to go, and Alys quickly braided her hair before the two of them headed out to the main practice yard.

There were several guards around, and some men sparring or shooting at the targets, but although they got few surprised looks, there was no one who could tell the two ladies that they couldn't practice archery.

The realisation was strangely freeing. If Sansa wanted to continue more ladylike pursuits, like her needlework, she could. If she wanted to go out riding, she could do that too. And if she wanted to pick up a bow and arrow and learn how to shoot, well, she could do that too. No one had the right to tell her she couldn't, not anymore. The only person who might have been able to forbid it was Jon, since he was the king now, and he wasn't there. And he probably wouldn't have cared anyway, Sansa thought. He'd never had a problem with Arya learning to shoot a bow and arrow, on the occasions when their younger sister snuck out and practiced in secret.

Besides, Sansa and Alys weren't the only women there. Brienne was there too, talking to three spearwives, wildling warrior women. After Sansa assured her that she was there to practice too, and she should continue what she was doing, Brienne started sparring against one of the spearwives, who wielded two short swords against Brienne's Valyrian steel sword, Oathkeeper, as the other two spearwives looked on.

All four of them seemed as comfortable with swordplay as the men were.

Alys picked up two bows and quivers of arrows, and they walked over to the archery range, where Alys proceeded to show Sansa how to hold the bow, how to place the arrow and pull back the bowstring, how to aim and fire.

Of course, since Sansa had never even held a bow and arrow before, she made a terrible archer. But she kept trying, and by the end of the afternoon, she thought she was getting the hang of it. Though her fingers were sore, and her arms ached.

"Not bad, for a beginner," Alys said as they pulled the arrows from the targets, and picked them up from the floor, where several of Sansa's arrows had landed. Though she had been hitting the target more often towards the end.

"We should do this again sometime," Sansa suggested. Learning to wield a weapon wasn't something she'd ever have considered before. It wasn't ladylike, her mother would certainly not have approved, and Sansa's younger self would have been horrified at the idea.

But then, Sansa's younger self had been a stupid little girl who believed Joffrey was a gallant prince, and thought that all knights were as honourable as the knights in the songs. As it turned out, Joffrey was a monster and most knights were no true knights at all. Very few men were truly decent and honourable.

Besides, being a proper lady seemed to mean being completely helpless in the face of danger. And Sansa was done with being helpless.

The following morning, her muscles ached from the strain of the unfamiliar activity, but she resolved to continue her new archery training once the ache faded in a few days.

She broke her fast in the Great Hall, sitting at the High Table, with Jon on her left and Alys on her right.

On Alys' other side sat Sigorn, the Magnar of Thenn. Jon had introduced the two of them before they sat down to eat, and apparently Alys and Sigorn were to spend the day together. So far, their interaction seemed cordial, but hesitant and slightly nervous, on both sides.

Convinced by now that Alys wasn't at Winterfell with nefarious intentions of any kind, Sansa was hopeful that the other woman might become a good friend. It would be nice to have a friend she could trust and confide in again.

She wondered for a moment what had happened to Jeyne Poole, the friend Sansa had travelled to King's Landing with, what seemed like an age ago. They'd both been stupid little girls at the time, but Jeyne had been a good friend. Her best friend. Sansa never knew what happened to her.

The truth was that she'd been too wrapped up in her own concerns, trying to survive, to even ask about her friend.

Probably Jeyne was dead, just like so many other people Sansa had known and cared about. But she wasn't going to let that morose thought stop her from making new friends now.

She caught Alys' attention and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "So, what do you think of your new betrothed?"

Alys glanced towards Sigorn, then shrugged. "I don't know," she whispered back. "I've just met the man. Ask me later?"

Sansa nodded. She thought about suggesting they meet up to do some needlework on the morrow. Alys had apparently fled Karhold with no clothes but the ones she'd been wearing at the time, so they'd need to have some new clothes made for her, and adjust her borrowed garments to fit her better in the meantime.

But at that moment, Sigorn got to his feet and offered Alys his hand. "My lady," he said as he met Alys' gaze. "If you've finished your meal, I thought perhaps you would like to take a walk around the castle grounds, with me." Despite his rather intimidating appearance, Sansa thought he seemed a little awkward.

Alys took his hand and rose to her feet. "Of course, my lord," she replied.

"Let me know how it goes," Sansa said.

Alys nodded, then turned her attention to Jon. "Your Grace," she said.

Jon was speaking to Ser Davos, who was sitting on his other side. Sansa elbowed her brother to get his attention. He glanced first at Sansa, then up at Alys and Sigorn.

"Thank you for the meal, Your Grace," Alys said, still being quite formal around Jon, whereas she was a lot more relaxed with Sansa. "If you'll permit, Sigorn and I would take our leave of this hall and walk the grounds."

"Of course. Lady Alys, Magnar Sigorn," Jon said, nodding to each of them in turn.

"Your Grace," Alys and Sigorn said together. Alys curtseyed as the Magnar bowed, and then they walked around the High Table, hand in hand, stepped down from the dais and walked past the other tables and out of the Great Hall.

Sansa took her leave soon after. Despite being convinced that Alys had nothing to do with Littlefinger's schemes, she was still worried that Baelish would be planning _something_ , and she needed to find out what it was.

In King's Landing, many of the more influential people had their own personal networks of spies. Varys, Littlefinger and Cersei certainly had.

Perhaps it was time that Sansa started building up her own network of spies, then. People she could trust to be absolutely loyal to her and Jon, who might be able to find out what Lord Baelish was doing without drawing attention to themselves, and would be willing to bring Sansa any information they discovered.

The question was, how was she to go about finding such people? People who wouldn't be in Littlefinger's pay? He'd told her about how Varys liked to use children as spies, and reward them with sweets. Cersei liked to use her servants and handmaids. Baelish used whoever he thought could be of use and could be bought.

She considered and discarded ideas as she worked on the problem, while also working on a new dress for herself. (She would help Alys with her own dresses later, but she'd had this one idea for a dress design and really wanted to get that finished first.)

How could she find people who could be trusted to be loyal, who couldn't be bought, and who could watch Baelish and manage to go unnoticed by a man who was accustomed to navigating the snake pit that was King's Landing?

The problem was, most everything she'd learned about that sort of thing she'd learned from Petyr Baelish, so how could she outwit him at a game he'd taught her, and which he'd been playing since long before she'd been born?

* * *

 **Author's note: Sorry it took a bit longer to post this chapter. I had a few really important assignments I had to get done in the last couple of weeks, and that had to take precedence over story writing.**

 **On a different note, there were several suggestions for the name of Bran's new direwolf, but everyone suggested 'Winter', either as the only suggestion or as one of a list. So it was basically unanimous. And it's a good name, too. So Bran's new direwolf will be called 'Winter'.**


	6. The Poison Water: Daenerys I

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 **Chapter 6: The Poison Water**

 **Daenerys I**

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Daenerys stood on the deck of her flagship, looking out over the harbour where her fleet had stopped to take on supplies. It would be their last stop in Essos, the captain had told her, before crossing the narrow sea to Westeros, her home. Even if it was a home that she had no memory of.

The wind whipped her silver-blonde hair into her face, and she reached up to brush it aside with one hand. The day was warm, and she felt the heat of the sun on her face and her bare arms. She wore sandsilk trousers under a blue dress the colour of the sea, though the ocean held far richer hues than her gown. The sea was calm and still today, and the water sparkled in the light of the sun.

Dany loved the ocean, and always had. She loved the endless water, stretching out as far as the eye could see, beyond the distant horizon. She loved the salt-laden air. She loved watching the dolphins that sometimes swam beside the ships.

If she hadn't been the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, if she hadn't had a duty to return home and rule her people, she thought that she might have been happy spending her whole life at sea, sailing from one land to another.

But of course, she did have a duty to her people, and to her realm.

She watched the men on the docks, loading and offloading crates and barrels. Beyond them, horse drawn carts weaved through the crowded streets. Markets stalls were set up wherever the vendors found space to sell their wares, at the sides of the streets or on the edges of the docks, and everywhere people were haggling, bargaining, and just generally going about their business.

Many of her people had disembarked for a last chance to stretch their legs on land before the final step of their journey. Most were tired of travelling by ship, the Dothraki especially. She'd lost sixty thousand men the last time they docked, back in Volantis, when many of the Dothraki who'd followed her thus far finally decided that they had had enough, and refused to board the ships again.

"The water is poison, it was always known," they said to each other. "We should never have come."

"We followed you onto the wooden horses, we travelled on the poison water, and look, see how sick and weak it has made us!" they'd said when they confronted her. It was true that the Dothraki were not made for the oceans. They seemed to suffer from seasickness far more than many of the other men, and their fear of the open water didn't help. And it had been a long voyage, travelling by ship from the Bay of Dragons, formerly known as Slaver's Bay, south around the coast of Essos. For months they had followed her, but finally, they'd had enough.

"We will go no further," they had told her. "Take to the land once again and we will continue to follow you, Khaleesi, but we shall travel on the poison water no more!"

It didn't help that many of the freedmen who had followed her from Meereen turned out to have an intense hatred of the Dothraki. Some of those freedmen had been born and bred as slaves, but others had only become slaves in the first place because the Dothraki had raided their villages, killed their friends and families, and sold the survivors into slavery.

She couldn't blame them for their hatred, not really.

She'd decided to split her forces once she reached Westeros and began her conquest. The freedmen who hated the Dothraki would not be asked to fight alongside them, but could instead join the Tyrell and Martell armies. Hopefully that would reduce the amount of conflict between her own people.

But it wasn't only the freedmen who were coming into conflict with the Dothraki. The Ironborn had no hatred for the horselords, but they did look down on them with contempt, seeing how they suffered at sea, jeering at them and making them the butt of jokes.

The Dothraki took the insults as a challenge, to be met with force, but at sea, on these ships, they were not at their best, and the Ironborn, armed, armoured and suffering not at all from the extended voyage, found it easy to best them when fights broke out. They knew exactly how to move and fight on ships, whereas the Dothraki… did not. Even after they finally got their sea legs and stopped stumbling around, they struggled to beat the Ironborn sailors here.

"Meet us on the Dothraki sea, and you shall see what Maaro can do," one man had spat, angrily shearing off his braid and throwing it at Yara Greyjoy's feet, after he'd had enough of her 'insolence' and tried to teach her her place, as a woman. His resulting humiliation at being beaten by said woman only added fuel to his rage. "On the Dothraki sea, woman, there, you would not beat me. I would beat you. And rape you when I was done. This, this wooden horse on the poison water, it is unnatural. Men cannot live like this. A true warrior cannot live and thrive this way, the poison water sickens and weakens him."

"Unless he's Ironborn," Yara replied. "Or she." She'd stepped towards her defeated opponent. "The salt and sea is in my blood. What's your blood made of, horselord? Grass?"

The Ironborn around her laughed.

Dany tried to stop the confrontations, often using her Unsullied forces to break up the fights, or even the threat of her dragons, but she couldn't be everywhere in the fleet at once. She'd spoken to Yara, tried to get her to control her men and stop them humiliating the Dothraki, but Yara claimed that it was the horselord who'd tried to humiliate her, and she, the Queen of the Iron Islands, could not let something like that go unanswered and hope to retain the respect of her men.

Dany could hardly argue with that. She knew full well how difficult it could be for a woman to earn the respect of men, especially warrior men.

And it was impossible to keep the Ironborn sailors and the freedmen separate from the Dothraki. The horselords knew nothing about sailing ships, so had to be split up amongst the fleet, sailing as passengers, something else the Dothraki found humiliating, and probably contributed to their need to prove themselves against the sailors. As such, even the non-Ironborn sailors were coming into conflict with them.

Eventually, sixty thousand Dothraki had decided that they had had enough, and once the ships stopped in Volantis, they'd left, taking their horses and their families and riding away, all their fears about the poison water having been confirmed. Daenerys was lucky to retain the remaining forty thousand Dothraki, but couldn't help but feel dismayed at losing more than half of her khalasar.

Still, she had been in far worse situations before, and forty thousand Dothraki was not a small number. And she still had her freedmen, including almost six thousand Unsullied, who had survived her conquest and attempt to rule Slaver's Bay. And she had her new Westerosi allies, the Greyjoys, as well as Dorne and the Reach.

Finally, the Great Houses of Westeros were rallying to support their rightful queen. The other Houses would follow, once she reached her homeland. If they did not, they would be destroyed with fire and blood.

"My Queen," a familiar voice interrupted her musings. She turned to see Varys and Tyrion standing behind her on the deck.

"Lord Varys, Lord Tyrion," she greeted them.

"My Queen," Tyrion repeated, "since this is our last stop before reaching Westeros, I thought that perhaps we should go over our plans for when we reach Dorne."

Dany sighed. "Very well."

They met in the cabin assigned as the war room. On the table, a large map of Westeros and the Western part of Essos had been set up. Queen Yara Greyjoy and her brother Theon stood there, representing the Ironborn. Grey Worm, her Unsullied commander, stood beside Missandei. Dany's remaining bloodriders, Aggo and Kovarro, were there as well, and the commander of her Queensguard, Ser Barristan Selmy, and her Hand of the Queen, Tyrion Lannister, and her Master of Whispers, Varys… all of them gathered around the table, with Daenerys at the head.

"So," Dany began. "We'll land the fleet at Sunspear, where the Sand Snakes and their mother, Elliara Sand, shall greet us, along with Olenna Tyrell and her army, whatever forces she doesn't need to hold the Reach." She nodded at the pieces on the map, meant to represent the various armies of their enemies and allies. Daenerys' army was currently represented by the miniature ships sitting on the ocean on the map, as well as three dragon game pieces taken from a couple of Cyvasse sets. All three of her dragons were off hunting right now, but she knew they would return.

She took out several counters painted with images of horses, to represent the Dothraki, and placed them on Dorne, alongside a smaller number of counters painted with swords, to represent the Unsullied. At first, she'd thought they should use a spear, since that was the weapon she usually associated with the Unsullied, but the Dornish forces were represented by the Martell sigil, a sun and spear, so she'd switched to swords for the Unsullied to avoid confusion.

She frowned. "Lord Varys, you told me that Elliara Sand executed the remainder of House Martell in order to take power. Are there any amongst the Dornish who are likely to oppose her because of this? I do not wish to risk landing at Sunspear only to discover that my allies have been deposed."

"House Martell is now officially extinct, my Queen, the Sand Snakes left no survivors," Varys told her. "There may be some among the Dornish who hate them for that, or dislike the idea of being ruled by a woman who is also a bastard, but I believe they are in the minority, certainly as long as Elliara Sand continues to promise her people vengeance. Vengeance is truly what most of the Dornish desire. They never had recompense for the death of Elia Martell and her children, and when the well-liked Prince Oberyn left for King's Landing to seek that vengeance, he got himself killed. Offer the Dornish fire and blood… Lannister blood, in particular, and I have no doubts whatsoever that they will support you, wholeheartedly. Any difficulties Elliara Sand may have as a result of her birth or how she came to power will not become a problem for you, not until after the war is won, and by then you will be on the Iron Throne and not so reliant on the Dornish in any case."

"Yes, that's why you suggested we land at Sunspear, I remember," Tyrion put in. "I do have to ask whether my being there might become a problem though. I am a Lannister, after all."

Varys looked at him. "It might, my lord, I cannot say. I was concerned with securing the Dornish and Tyrell alliance for our Queen, and did not mention you were with her for that very reason. I needed to give them reasons to support the Queen's cause, not reasons to oppose her."

"Tyrion's presence is not negotiable," Daenerys said. "He is my Hand, and a valued advisor. I will not have him left out of our discussions just because they don't like the family he was born into."

Tyrion shrugged. "If they take offense, I suppose I'll just need to remind them that I killed my father, who was, after all, the man who ordered Elia, Aegon and Rhaenys' deaths. If that isn't enough, I can regale them with stories about just how much I hated him and how much I'm willing to help them make my dear sister suffer."

"Yes," Varys said, with an expression that Dany couldn't interpret. "That should win them over."

Dany looked from one to the other. "If that doesn't work, I shall simply remind our allies that I have three dragons." She looked at the stones painted with roses, to represent the Tyrell army. "You said that Olenna Tyrell wants vengeance for the death of her son and grandchildren."

"Cersei Lannister destroyed the Sept of Baelor while they were inside," Varys reminded her. "Like Dorne, she is happy to ally with you for the promise of revenge."

It was a little disheartening to realise that her Westerosi allies seemed to be willing to side with her, not because they knew she was their rightful queen, nor because they believed she would be a good ruler, but simply because they wanted vengeance, and felt Dany was the best way to get it. It would have been nice if at least _someone_ wanted to restore her to the throne for the first two reasons.

Instead, she had Dorne and the Reach demanding revenge. She had the Greyjoys asking for their own throne and independence. Varys, Tyrion and Ser Barristan had only joined her after they were practically exiled from King's Landing on pain of death, and could never safely return unless it was at a conqueror's side.

She had her freedmen, including the Unsullied, who followed her because she had given them their freedom, and she had the Dothraki, who followed her because she had proven herself strong. But none of them had ever set foot on Westeros.

No, it seemed that Westeros was content to follow Usurpers, or else wanted only vengeance. None of them cried out for a fair queen and the rightful restoration of the Targaryen dynasty.

Still, that was among the Lords and noble houses. She had learned in Slaver's Bay that having the support of the downtrodden, common people could turn the tide of battle and win her cities, no matter what their noble rulers might have wanted. And Daenerys was very good at winning over the common people to her cause. She'd done it in Slaver's Bay, and she would do it again in Westeros.

Viserys had once believed that the common people were crying out for their rightful king, and sewing dragon banners in secret. Dany was not that naïve, not anymore. Ser Jorah had explained to her that what the common people really wanted was food, shelter, safety and a summer that never ended.

Dany could not affect the coming and going of the seasons, but she would deliver her people from the cruel rule of the Lannisters and give them the just, safe, prosperous realm they needed.

But first, it seemed that she would need to conquer her domain with fire and blood.

She continued to examine the map in front of her. "There are no more remaining Stark or Baratheon forces, are there?" she needed to clarify that. The Usurper had been a Baratheon, his brothers helping him in his rebellion, and later claiming crowns of their own. The Starks and the Lannisters were both the Usurper's dogs, as Viserys had always called them, and would need to be put down.

Only it seemed that the recent Westerosi civil war had done part of her job for her, and now only the Lannisters remained.

"Renly Baratheon was killed some time ago," Varys confirmed, "and a more recent report told us that Stannis Baratheon perished while trying to seize Winterfell from the Boltons, whom the Lannisters have appointed as their new Wardens of the North. The Boltons are not well liked, however, so whoever you chose as your new Warden of the North would likely be seen as an improvement."

"Sansa Stark survived, Lord Stark's daughter," Theon Greyjoy said. "I helped her escape from Ramsay Bolton. But she's alone… except for a woman knight who swore to protect her. Sansa doesn't have any forces though. She was just going to head to her half-brother at Castle Black, for sanctuary."

Dany didn't really know anything about that; the only Stark she knew of by name had been Lord Eddard Stark, the Usurper's friend. She'd intended to have him executed when she returned home, but he was dead now anyway. Any scared Stark children or relatives wandering about the North with no army wasn't really her concern, though she might pity them. Daenerys knew how it felt to be sentenced to wander alone and afraid through the world, after all.

Still, whatever she did or didn't end up deciding to do with the North, her concern now was those people with armies, or in positions of power. "If Bolton is the Warden of the North, then he is the one we'll need to deal with," she said.

"Oh, we'll deal with him," Yara Greyjoy said, a viciousness to her tone that Dany hadn't heard before. The two Greyjoys exchanged a look. Theon looked away first.

"Ramsay Bolton is a monster," Theon Greyjoy said, his voice cracking as he spoke. He swallowed, and when Dany met his eyes, she saw sheer terror in their depths as the Ironborn spoke of him. He opened his mouth to speak again, then closed it, seemingly unable to continue.

"Yes, well, he will be removed," Dany said. She didn't know exactly what had happened between Bolton and Greyjoy, but clearly something terrible, to put that much fear in the man. One rumour she'd heard during the voyage was that Theon had been captured, tortured and made into a eunuch by Ramsay Bolton, who had thereafter forced Theon to call him 'master'. Daenerys had no intention of letting someone like that remain in power in her realm. There would be no slaves and masters in Westeros.

"If Sansa Stark is alive and hiding out at Castle Black," Tyrion said thoughtfully, "then you may want to consider making her your new Wardeness of the North, Your Grace."

Dany gave him an incredulous look. "Help a Stark reclaim her family's position of power? After what her father helped do to _my_ family?" She might sympathise with Sansa Stark's position, but she doubted a Stark could ever be a trusted vassal after everything that had happened.

"Sansa Stark had not even been born at the time of Robert's rebellion. She certainly had no part in it. And the fact is that the Starks have _always_ ruled the North, Your Grace," Tyrion said. "Long before Aegon's conquest, before the Andal invasion, before Valyria itself was even born as a civilisation. The Stark family were a power in the North. Though I believe it took some time for them to build their castle and establish complete control over all the North, they have been there, ruling, for thousands of years. It will not be easy to try and replace them with a different House. Even my father didn't dare try it. He appointed the Boltons as _temporary_ Wardens of the North, but he knew that the North needed a Stark to follow, or at least someone of Stark blood. It was the very reason he forced me to wed Lady Sansa in the first place, hoping for a Lannister heir with Stark blood, so the North would accept him."

Dany frowned as she thought about that.

"He's right," Theon said. "I tried taking the North once, and they all hated me for it. The North serves the Starks, and only the Starks. Kill a Stark and they will hate you forever, curse your guts and hope you die a vicious and painful death."

"I'm not intending to kill Sansa Stark," Dany said indignantly.

"But you should keep the Northern loyalty in mind when the time comes to take control of that region," Tyrion said. "If you offered to restore the last surviving Stark to her rightful place as Wardeness of the North, I should think that would win you both her loyalty and that of the Northern lords."

Dany sighed. "I'll consider it, when the time comes. _If_ Sansa Stark will pledge fealty to me, that is. But we're getting ahead of ourselves. If we're going to land at Sunspear, and secure my reign over Dorne and the Reach first, the North isn't something we'll need to concern ourselves with for some time."

"No, the main thing you'll need to concern yourself with is taking King's Landing, and defeating my sweet sister," Tyrion said. "When you first land, many will view you as just another claimant. Trust me, we have had a great many of those in recent years. To be taken seriously as the true Queen of the realm, you must take King's Landing."

Varys nodded in agreement.

"She isn't just a claimant," Ser Barristan finally spoke up, having been standing silently until that point. "She is the rightful Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. The true Targaryen heir. When she lands, people will flock to her, shouting that Rhaegar Targaryen's sister has finally returned."

Daenerys hoped he was right. She would kill to gain her kingdom, but she didn't want to kill innocents. The faster the people came to serve her, the faster the conquest would be completed. Then she could begin ruling them as a just, fair and beloved queen.

Tyrion snorted. "Forgive me, Ser Barristan, but that sounds an awful lot like wishful thinking to me."

The old knight glared at the dwarf. "She is the rightful queen. There's no wishful thinking about it, _Lannister_." He made Tyrion's surname sound like an insult.

Tyrion grabbed a goblet of wine from a side table. "Oh, I agree, Queen Daenerys is the rightful ruler of the Seven Kingdoms. What I _meant_ was that expecting the people to flock to her because she's Rhaegar Targaryen's sister is wishful thinking."

"Why wouldn't they?" Ser Barristan asked. "I've seen the calibre of kings in Westeros in recent years. Robert the drunkard, Joffrey the vindictive little boy. When Queen Daenerys lands, the people will see her for the true queen she is, and abandon the pretenders. Those too young to remember the Targaryens will see her as a better ruler than anyone they've ever seen. Those old enough to remember will remember Rhaegar. You know how well loved the Prince was."

"Yes, until he abducted Lyanna Stark, and Robert Baratheon made sure his name was dragged through the mud," Tyrion pointed out. "And everyone in Westeros has heard stories of Daenerys' and Rhaegar's father, the Mad King, who was fortunately defeated."

"Fortunately?" Dany asked, whirling on him in outrage.

Tyrion winced. "I didn't mean –"

"Queen Daenerys' father being deposed is not _fortunate_ ," Grey Worm insisted angrily.

"No?" Tyrion asked. "Not for everyone, certainly, but I'd say it was very fortunate for you, Grey Worm. And you, Missandei. Think about this, my friends; if he hadn't been deposed, or… well, killed, actually, then Queen Daenerys would never have left Westeros, would never have gone to Slaver's Bay in search of an army, and would never have freed either of you."

Grey Worm blinked. Missandei opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again, looking slightly confused and apologetic at the same time.

"What about Aegon and Rhaenys?" Daenerys demanded. "And my brother, Rhaegar?"

"Yes, well, it certainly wasn't fortunate for everyone. Especially Rhaegar and his children. And all the other people who died in that war. But…" Tyrion hesitated. "Look, the point I was trying to make was that many of the people in Westeros were relieved when Aerys' reign came to an end. Those who fought on the Targaryen side were mostly fighting for Rhaegar, who was already dead by then. No one loved Aerys. Well, except perhaps his pet pyromancers."

Daenerys glared at him. "Are you suggesting that my subjects were actually _glad_ that my family was defeated? That they were pleased when the Usurper stole the throne? He had no right to it! He and his dogs murdered not only my father, but my brother and his children and they would have killed me as well, if they could have!"

"Yes, all terrible things. But your father did terrible things as well."

"I know. I know what my father did. He burned people who committed crimes and he planned to destroy King's Landing with wildfire. But that last part was something he only did after he knew we'd lost the war, was it not? He was probably mad with grief over the loss of his son and heir."

Tyrion sighed. "The sad fact is that most people would rather live a comfortable lie than hear a hard truth. The time for living in fantasies of the Targaryens being wrongfully deposed by vile usurpers for absolutely no good reason is over, Your Grace. You're not ruling a distant kingdom in Essos anymore. You will soon land on the shores of Westeros, and there you will eventually hear tales of the terrible things your family did. Now, I believe in you. I believe you will be a great ruler, and I believe that the people of Westeros will come to see that, eventually. But…"

Tyrion put the now empty wine goblet back on the table, refilled it, and then met her gaze. "I do not think that the people will rejoice to see you, the moment you arrive. It's more likely that your supporters will join you because they are hoping for gains for themselves, or because they fear your dragons and armies. I suppose a few might join you out of remembered loyalty, but the truth is that your family is not fondly remembered by many of the people of Westeros. There is a reason why Robert Baratheon was able to gather enough support to overthrow your family, and it wasn't because he was filling people's heads with lies. One hard truth you will have to face is the fact that your father was named the Mad King for a reason."

"I know what my father was, Lord Tyrion," Daenerys said coldly. "I am not my father, only his rightful heir."

There was an awkward pause.

"Aerys may not have been well loved," Ser Barristan said, "but Rhaegar was, and that is the point we will make; that Queen Daenerys is _Rhaegar's_ sister."

"Ser Barristan told me of how my brother used to play his harp and sing, for both lords and the common people, and sometimes gave the money he earned to the poor, or to another minstrel," she looked to Ser Barristan, who nodded.

"He did, Your Grace," Ser Barristan said. "And the people remember him. He was well loved by them, and as his sister, you will be loved by them as well."

"Once they get to know her, perhaps," Tyrion argued, "but I doubt the lords of Westeros will fall at her feet the instant she arrives just because she is Rhaegar's sister."

"The lords might be reluctant, but the common people will remember. Besides, I am the mother of dragons and breaker of chains. Varys says the common people have no love for the Lannisters. I shall free them from Lannister rule. And if they remember by brother, as Ser Barristan says, why shouldn't they flock to me?"

"This isn't going to be the same as liberating Slaver's Bay, Your Grace," Tyrion said. "The people of Westeros are not slaves in need of having their chains broken. And as for the common people remembering Rhaegar…" He paused, staring at his wine goblet thoughtfully.

Then the dwarf looked up and met Dany's gaze. "I was once in the middle of a riot in King's Landing," he said. "The common people were starving, and crying out for a just ruler. They hated the Lannisters, it is true, but the kings they called out for to liberate them were Robb Stark, Stannis Baratheon and his brother Renly. All three are dead now, of course, but those were the names they called out for. No one cried out for the return of the Targaryens. In fact, in the end, the kings' names were forgotten as well, and all they cried out for was bread."

"The Tyrells have plenty of food on their lands. If the common people want bread, Daenerys will be able to give it to them," Ser Barristan said.

"I'm sure she will," Tyrion said. "And I have no doubt that she will win the people over in time, but the both of you must accept that it is unlikely that they will run to join our Queen the moment we reach Westeros simply because she is Rhaegar Targaryen's sister. Bear in mind that during Robert Baratheon's reign, Rhaegar was barely spoken of, and when he was mentioned, it was hardly in a positive light. Robert hated the man, for abducting and raping his betrothed. Everyone knows that, and since Robert won the war, it was his version of events that was told."

"That abduction story was a lie," Ser Barristan insisted angrily. "I knew Prince Rhaegar. He would never have abducted a girl against her will, let alone rape her. Rhaegar loved his Lady Lyanna."

Daenerys smiled at the fervent emotion in Ser Barristan's voice.

Tyrion seemed more sceptical. "Two different sides with two opposing stories. Since everyone involved in that particular event is long dead, I suppose we'll never know for sure what the truth was."

Ser Barristan shook his head. "I spent a great deal of time guarding Prince Rhaegar. I knew him, and even counted him as a friend. And I saw enough to know that his relationship with Lyanna Stark was love, on both sides. They were writing letters to each other for months after they met at that Tourney at Harrenhal." He paused. Then he met Dany's gaze. "I'll admit that I did not think it… wise for the Prince to pursue such a relationship, not when he had a wife already, and the Stark girl was betrothed to another. But when I voiced my concerns, he told me that Lyanna was desperate to escape her betrothal to Robert Baratheon. Rhaegar and Lyanna were in love, and planned to marry. Targaryens have taken more than one wife in the past, Aegon the Conqueror being a prime example. Rhaegar married Elia for duty. He wished to marry Lyanna for love."

Daenerys looked around the cabin and realised that no one else had heard this before either. Even Varys looked surprised.

"You didn't know about this, Lord Varys?" Tyrion asked him, apparently also having noticed the eunuch's surprise. "I thought you knew all the rumours and whispers."

Varys gave the dwarf a look. "Despite what you may believe, even I do not know everything my lord. I did know that Prince Rhaegar and Lady Lyanna were exchanging letters, before they ran off together. I was not aware that they intended to wed each other."

"They didn't just intend to, they did," Ser Barristan said. "After Rhaegar returned from the South to join the war, I asked him whether Ser Arthur, Ser Oswell and Ser Gerold would be joining us. It seemed to me that we needed all the fighters we could get, and my Kingsguard brothers were the best there were. Ser Arthur especially. But Rhaegar told me he'd left all three men behind to protect Lyanna, his new wife."

Tyrion gave Ser Barristan a sceptical look. "If this is true, why didn't they tell anyone? Why did they not show up earlier in the rebellion and inform the lady's family and betrothed that she had not been abducted and it was all a misunderstanding? Preferably before her father and brother were murdered by her new Good-father?"

Dany blinked, "What?" she demanded. "Murdered? What do you mean?"

Varys gave Tyrion a quelling look, before turning his attention to Daenerys. "An unpleasant business, to be sure, my Queen. And not something I think you would like to know the details of."

"I will decide for myself what I do and do not need to know the details of!" Dany snapped.

Varys, Tyrion and Ser Barristan all exchanged a look.

They all knew, she realised. Whatever it was, all three of them knew about it, and none was too eager to speak of it. Was it really that terrible?

She took a deep breath. "Tell me," she commanded.

Tyrion stared into his wine goblet. "Well, suffice to say that Lyanna Stark's eldest brother somehow got it into his head that his sister had been abducted and raped by the crown prince. As such, he went to the Red Keep and demanded that Rhaegar 'come out and die'. The king took exception to that and… well…" he looked to Ser Barristan and Varys for help, but both remained silent.

"Well, what?" Dany asked.

Tyrion looked up and met her gaze. "Well, the short version is that your father burned Lord Rickard Stark alive in his armour, and his son, Brandon Stark, was attached to a device that caused him to strangle himself while trying to reach a sword to free his father. I wasn't there, but my brother Jaime was, and he told me the whole story. The Mad King laughed as Lord Stark and his heir died, and once it was over, he sent word to Lord Arryn, demanding the heads of his young wards, the new Lord Eddard Stark and Lord Robert Baratheon. Lord Arryn refused. And that is when the war began."

The entire room fell silent as Tyrion finished his story.

Dany felt sick. But still…

"Your brother was the _Kingslayer_ ," she pointed out, a little desperately. "He broke his sworn vows and murdered my father. Jaime Lannister may well have been lying."

"He… wasn't, my Queen," Ser Barristan said apologetically. "Not about that. That story… I was there. I saw it happen. It…" he glanced at Tyrion. "It happened just as he said."

Dany pressed a hand to her stomach and sat down. Everyone in the room seemed to be exchanging uneasy looks… except for the Dothraki, who seemed rather bored by the turn of discussion. But then, those names and events wouldn't mean anything to them.

If this was true, then it seemed that perhaps the Starks, at least, had started their war as an act of vengeance…

She'd always imagined the Starks as unpleasant, stone-eyed, cold-hearted, grasping lapdogs of the Usurper. But if this was true, they must have seen Dany's family as the aggressors.

But still… it was only her father who was to blame, not the rest of her family.

"Why didn't my brother do anything?" she asked, looking up at Ser Barristan. "Why didn't Rhaegar intervene? Try to find a way to stop it before things got even worse?"

"I… believe he was unaware of it, Your Grace," Ser Barristan replied. "When he returned, Rhaegar told me that he and his new bride had wanted some time to themselves, away from all the court politics and responsibilities. Taking a second wife was not without precedent, but he knew it would still be controversial. That the Martells would feel slighted, that the Faith of the Seven wouldn't like it… So rather than announcing what they'd done, they rode off together for a few months, alone aside from two of the Kingsguard, intending to return and deal with the consequences later. As it turned out, they couldn't have chosen a worse time for it, but Rhaegar could not have known just what was going to happen while they were gone."

Ser Barristan took a deep breath before continuing. "When the war broke out, no one knew where to find Rhaegar, and he didn't know about the war. Not until Aerys eventually dispatched Ser Gerold to find him and bring him back to King's Landing, when it became clear that Robert's rebellion was a true threat to the crown. By then, the damage had been done. Lyanna Stark's father and brother were dead, the rebellion was in full swing and only gaining in strength, and there was no way for your brother to save the situation diplomatically. He could only resolve things after he'd defeated the Usurper and won the war."

"But he didn't," Tyrion said. "Instead, Robert defeated Rhaegar and all of that led to where we are now." He took another sip of wine.

"What happened to his wife?" Missandei asked. "This… Lady Lyanna that he loved?"

"Lady Lyanna… Princess Lyanna, by that time, died from a fever," Ser Barristan said. "Her brother Eddard found her, I was told, but they couldn't save her. Robert Baratheon was devastated when he found out, since Lyanna had been his betrothed." He hesitated. "I didn't dare tell Robert that his beloved Lyanna never returned his feelings, that she'd loved and wedded Rhaegar instead, so I simply stayed silent on the matter."

"What about the Kingsguard who were with her?" Dany asked. "What happened to them?"

"Lord Stark and his men outnumbered them, so all three were killed. They refused to yield, refused to bend the knee to the Usurper."

"They were loyal," Dany said.

"They were, Your Grace," Ser Barristan said. "The greatest, truest knights I ever had the honour to serve with."

"And so Stark and his men killed them," she said angrily.

Would that Dany and Viserys had had such loyal knights with them when they fled to the Free Cities. Although, come to think of it, why hadn't they? Viserys was the rightful King of the Seven Kingdoms, by that time.

"Why didn't those Kingsguard leave to seek out their true king, once Rhaegar and my father were dead?" Dany asked. "That was their first duty after all, was it not? To defend their king? And if they were still loyal…"

"They stayed because Prince Rhaegar ordered them to guard Princess Lyanna," Ser Barristan said. "Even after his death, they would have continued to follow his commands, no matter what. That was the kind of loyalty your brother inspired."

It was the kind of loyalty Dany hoped to inspire as well.

"Ser Barristan…" Missandei spoke hesitantly. "You said he had two wives. Did he not order men to guard his other wife as well?"

"Princess Elia was in the Red Keep, protected by all the guards and soldiers in King's Landing. Rhaegar probably believed she was already safe enough."

"But she wasn't," Dany said, angrily. She already knew this part of the story. "Princess Elia was raped and murdered by the Usurpers dogs. Stark and Lannister. They killed her children too. Princess Rhaenys, who was only three years old, and Prince Aegon, who was only a babe."

"No," Ser Barristan said, "that was Lannister work. The men who murdered Elia and her children were in service to the Lannisters."

"Not _all_ Lannisters, mind you," Tyrion put in. "Specifically, they served my father, Lord Tywin, who if you'll all remember, I killed with a crossbow, thereby ridding the world of a very powerful but very unpleasant man."

"There were Stark men too," Dany insisted. She'd heard the story from Viserys a hundred times as a child. She knew it very well. "It was Stark _and_ Lannister men who killed them. The Lannisters may have dealt the killing blow, but Viserys always said it was the Usurper's dogs that killed them. The Starks… maybe they did have reason to hate my father, after all. And perhaps there was some misunderstanding about my brother, Rhaegar. But Elia's children, Rhaenys and Aegon… they were _children_. And the Starks helped _murder_ them."

Tyrion, Ser Barristan, the Greyjoys and Varys were all looking at her.

"My Queen," Tyrion said, "I believe you have been misinformed. I can tell you for a fact that the Starks had nothing to do with the murder of Elia and her children. My father's army sacked the city, went into the Red Keep and killed them. By the time Ned Stark and his army arrived at the gates, Elia, Aegon and Rhaenys were already dead."

Varys nodded. "He's right. I knew Lord Stark personally, during the short time he served as Robert's Hand, and above all, Eddard Stark was honest and honourable. He was not the sort of man to murder children. Indeed, during the small council sessions when Robert Baratheon spoke of having you killed, it was Lord Stark who spoke up against it. He flatly refused to carry out Robert's order."

Dany wasn't sure what to think about that, but in the end… "It doesn't matter," she decided. "Whether Stark played a part in those murders or not, he still fought beside the Usurper during the rebellion. And… he's dead now anyway, isn't he? So it matters even less. Let us focus on the foes who are still living."

She didn't want to discuss the rebellion anymore, so she turned back to the map on the table. "So, once the Tyrell army has joined us in Dorne, once we are sure that I have Dorne and the Reach under my control, and our forces have rested and we've had time to plan, and assess any changes in the Seven Kingdoms since we last had word, we will head north to take King's Landing." She pointed out a section of the map, just south of King's Landing. "We'll need to pass through the Stormlands to get there, so I'll conquer that region on the way. Are we likely to encounter much resistance there, do you think?"

Varys shook his head. "As far as I know, my Queen, there is no current Lord Paramount of the Stormlands. All the Baratheons are dead, and it seems the Lannisters have been too busy dealing with other concerns to appoint a replacement. And all the strongest lords and fighters in that region left to march with Renly or Stannis."

Daenerys nodded. That should make things easier.

"We'll have to be careful of wildfire, when we reach the capitol," Tyrion put in. "My sister has seen how well that can drive off an enemy force."

"The fleet can sail around the coast and meet you there, once you're ready to attack the city," Yara Greyjoy said. "That way, we can surround them on all sides, attack from multiple fronts, and there will be no way for the Lannisters to escape. Though… there is also my Uncle Euron to consider."

"Will he help us or hinder us?" Dany asked. "You said he intended to offer me his ships in exchange for a marriage alliance, but since I chose to ally with you instead…"

Yara shrugged. "To be honest, I don't really know what my uncle will do. I'm sure he'll try to kill me and Theon, but he might still try to make an alliance with you. Or he might decide to side with the Lannisters. Or he might decide to leave us all to fight amongst ourselves while he raids up and down the coast."

"So we don't know."

Yara shook her head. "I can only guess, I'm afraid."

Dany nodded, then looked at the map for a minute, and pointed out two of the regions they had not yet mentioned. "The Riverlands and the Vale," she said. "Who controls them, and how are they likely to respond to my return? Both of them once fought for the Usurper. But how do they stand now?"

"The Lannisters appointed House Frey to rule the Riverlands," Varys said. "But the region is more war torn than any other, and the Freys are universally hated by everyone. They betrayed Robb Stark at a wedding feast and slaughtered most of the Northern forces. You could easily replace them with almost any House of your choosing, and the Riverlands would likely thank you for it."

"The Vale stayed out of all the recent conflict altogether," Tyrion said. "Their lord is technically young Robin Arryn, but it's Petyr Baelish who I believe really pulls the strings there. He's a slippery man, but he'll support you if he believes it's in his own best interests."

"Well, I'm sure he'll find it in his best interests not to be burned alive by dragonfire," Dany said. She'd heard about the Eyrie, the High Seat of House Arryn. Supposedly impenetrable because it was so high up and difficult to get to.

Not so difficult to reach if one has three dragons though. Dragons fly.

"Yes, I'm sure he will," Tyrion said. "Though I would still advise you to bear in mind that he is very good at twisting situations to his own advantage, so while I doubt he would even consider opposing you directly, once he sees your army and dragons, he may cause difficulties further down the line."

"He is a rather unpleasant fellow, truth be told, my Queen," Varys added. "He likes to appear useful, helpful and no great threat, but he is somewhat of an expert at manipulating things behind the scenes."

Dany waved a hand dismissively, her gaze still on the map. "I'll keep it in mind, but first I have to conquer the Seven Kingdoms, before I can rule them." She looked up and met the gazes of the other people in the cabin. "Once I have taken King's Landing, I will send out messages by raven to all the lords in the realm, and demand that they pledge fealty, or else die in fire and blood."


	7. The Riverlands: Arya I

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 **Chapter 7: The Riverlands**

 **Arya I**

 **.**

Arya sat in the tavern, listening to the people around her as she nibbled on her bread. It was good bread, freshly baked, and she'd stolen enough coin to pay for it too. She thanked the barmaid as the woman refilled her cup of water (she could have asked for ale, but didn't want anything that would dull her senses and reaction times), and then refocussed her attention on the conversation a group of men were having a couple of tables away.

"They said his head were on the dais, just sitting there with a wide open mouth and eyes frozen in terror," the first man said. "And there was bits of dead body in the pie as well. _Human_ bodies. Later they found his sons in a pantry, so they figure the parts were from them."

"Are you sayin' he ate his own sons in a pie?" another man asked.

"I'm just saying what I heard. Besides, I wouldn't put it past him. Everyone knows what he did at the Red Wedding. He broke _Guest Right_. He _murdered_ his own King and all the King's men. And the King's mother. And the King's wife and unborn child… Man does somthin' like that, who knows what else he'd do? Maybe he decided he had too many sons, so had them baked in a pie for his supper."

Another man snorted. "Rubbish," he said. "I heard there was writing on the floor. The servants who found him couldn't read it, but it was all written in blood. They called for the some of the lords, and the lords said what it said, right, was _'the North remembers'_. That means it was a vengeance thing, not just old Walder Frey baking his sons for dinner."

"You don't know that," the first man insisted. "Maybe old Walder Frey was having a nice piece of son pie when the Northman assassin showed up and killed him."

"Did they ever find the one that did it?" a third man asked.

"No, they searched the Twins all over for weeks, but found nothing."

Arya sighed and leaned back in her seat.

She'd heard this story being told more times than she could count. It had spread like wildfire after she'd left the Twins. Everyone hated the Freys, and no one mourned old Lord Walder, but the exact manner of his death seemed to hold a kind of horrified fascination to some people, while others considered it poetic justice.

In the last tavern she'd visited, there was even a group of minstrels who'd made up a song about it.

But Arya wasn't listening in taverns just to hear countless retellings of how she'd killed Walder Frey. She was actually hoping to hear something about the Brotherhood without Banners.

The Brotherhood had sold Gendry to the Red Witch for a bag of gold, after they'd promised him he could be one of them. He'd wanted to join them, and they lied and betrayed him, and Gendry was probably dead now because of it. Or… well, he might be, anyway. She didn't actually know what had happened to him. But in any case, Arya had put both Thoros of Myr and Beric Dondarrion on her list.

Oh, and the Red Woman too. Only she had absolutely no idea where the Red Woman might have gone, whereas she knew the Brotherhood was somewhere in the Riverlands.

She would have to kill Thoros first, she thought, so he couldn't bring Beric Dondarrion back after she killed him.

Only she had to actually find them first, which was proving rather difficult. She'd thought to cross both their names off her list while she was still in the Riverlands, but nobody was actually talking about them. Or at least, not about where they might be.

Giving up for the day, she got to her feet and made her way past the other tables, heading for the door of the tavern. She'd stolen a thick fur cloak to keep herself warm, and pulled the hood up before she stepped out into the drizzle of cold rain. It was dark outside already, the days getting shorter and colder now that winter was here.

Her boots squelched through the mud as she made her way along the path, paying careful attention to her surroundings to make sure she wasn't being followed.

A wagon, drawn by a tired looking old horse, drew up beside the village stables just as she reached them. She kept walking past as the man driving the wagon jumped down and spoke to the stable master about the cold and the weather, and something about the Freys…

"It was the Brotherhood," the man from the wagon said, stopping Arya in her tracks.

"You sure? A lot of folks hate the Freys. Doesn't mean the Brotherhood's involved," the stable master replied.

Arya looked over her shoulder, saw both men standing outside the stables, then ducked behind the wall so she'd be out of sight if they looked her way.

"But who else would be brazen enough to hang Freys in the middle of the woods, on their own land? And not just once, but time and time again. Besides, don't the Brotherhood stand for justice and all that?" the man from the wagon asked.

"I don't know. Seems more likely to be Northman vengeance."

"There were plenty of men from the Riverlands who marched with the Young Wolf as well. And after the Red Wedding… well, the Freys are all guilty of that. You don't have to be a Northman to think justice needs to be served." There was anger in the man's voice.

The stable master picked up on that anger too. "Did you lose someone?" he asked.

"My younger brother," the man with the wagon said. "He was no one important. No one they had to kill. But he was one of the soldiers in King Robb's camp, so the Freys killed him all the same. Wasn't even a fight, from what I heard. I mean, who'd be expecting anything? They were there for a break from the war. To attend a wedding. They had Guest Right. And the Freys were supposed to be on the same side. Only then they went out through the camp and slaughtered everyone."

"Aye, it was a bad thing they did. The Freys are cursed forever in the eyes of gods and men. I'm sorry for your loss, friend."

"Oh, aye, everyone's sorry for everyone's losses. But most won't do anything about it, will they? Personally, I'm just glad someone's finally doing something. Outlaws or no. But if you think about it, when the so-called lords are worse than criminals, anyone who's looking to do what's right is going to end up being named outlaw."

The Brotherhood were hanging Freys? Arya frowned and bit her lip, before peering around the corner of the stables.

"You want to be careful who you say such things to," the stable master warned the other man. "If the wrong person hears, you'll be the one hanging."

"I know. But every so often a man gets sick of playing loyal subject to a bunch weasel-faced pricks and pretending nothing's wrong. Anyway, enough of that. I'll need the horse stabled for the night, but I'll be off again on the morrow."

"Where you headed?"

"Is that any of your business? Here, should be enough coin to pay for the stables," the man with the wagon handed over some money. "Make sure the wagon's chained up and out of the way too, so no one steals it."

"Will do."

The stable master unhitched the horse from the wagon and led it into the stables as the other man trudged off towards the tavern.

Arya continued walking, moving off into the trees, thinking about what she'd heard.

If the Brotherhood were hanging Freys to avenge the Red Wedding… well, obviously that was a good thing. Arya herself had considered staying at the Twins after killing Lord Walder, in order to get rid of more of the Freys, but the lord's death had caused so much commotion and made everyone so suspicious that it had seemed like a better idea to just get out of there and leave the area for the time being.

It would have been easier to simply poison everyone at the Twins, but she hadn't wanted to kill those who were not actually guilty. The children, servants… people who weren't involved in the massacre of Robb and his people.

So she'd travelled south, and started searching for the Brotherhood, thinking she could deal with Thoros and Dondarrion, and then return to the Twins to deal with the other guilty Freys once she'd dealt with the Brotherhood.

Now though… if the Brotherhood were actually helping to get justice…

 _If_ they were. The Brotherhood were liars after all. It might not be true. But how could she find out?

Perhaps she should head north again, return to the Twins and see for herself.

She reached a secluded enough place, deep in the woods, sheltered by a small rock overhang, and settled down to sleep, keeping Needle and a dagger close, just in case.

That night, she dreamed that she was a wolf, running through the undergrowth, her smaller cousins running with her.

The forest was filled with scents and sounds, her sharp wolf senses picking up far more than a human ever could. Her eyes saw clearly in the dark. Many of the trees were bare now, their leaves long since fallen. If she looked up, she could see the moon and stars through wide gaps in the branches.

She picked up the scent of prey and ran faster.

Hooves pounded the ground a little further ahead. The scent of fear and musky deer filled her nose. Her pack was driving the animal this way.

The deer was soon in sight, and she leapt forward, knocking the animal to the ground and ripping out its throat.

The taste of hot blood filled her mouth. She leaned down and ripped off a chunk of meat from the deer's belly.

Several smaller wolves emerged from further back amongst the trees, some panting after having chased the deer. But they all stayed back until she'd had her fill, then moved in to eat once she settled down at the edge of the clearing.

The deer didn't last long, and there wasn't enough to feed many of them. Most packs only had a small family group of wolves, but after she'd been left alone, her brothers and sisters too far away to reach, she'd needed to find a new pack. Now there were so many of them, and they all followed her, the lone direwolf in a pack of hundreds of smaller wolves.

She got to her feet and turned north. She couldn't recall why, but she needed to see what was going on around the castle that stretched over a river. _The Crossing. The Twins_ , some part of her mind whispered.

She threw back her head and howled, calling the pack and hearing them answer.

It was time to head back north, and see what was going on at the Twins.

When Arya woke, she was disorientated for a minute, adjusting to her human form again after spending the night running as a wolf.

It was daylight, and she was alone in the forest, huddled under her cloak, with nothing to defend her but her sword, dagger and wits. No wolves. No pack.

She remembered the dream.

She'd had wolf dreams before, back when she'd crossed through the Riverlands as she'd been running from King's Landing. She was fairly sure that when she dreamt, she was Nymeria, her direwolf. The dreams had stopped when she'd gotten too far away, but started again when she was on her way to the Twins to kill Walder Frey.

She was almost sure that the dreams were real. Stories of the huge wolf pack were all over the Riverlands, after all, and that fit with her dreams. And besides that… well, something about the dreams just seemed too real for them to be just ordinary dreams. And if the dreams were real, that meant Nymeria had picked up on her need to know what was going on at the Twins and was heading north.

Arya grinned. She hoped the wolf pack terrified the shit out of the Freys, when they reached the Crossing.

In the meantime, there were other things she needed to do in the Riverlands. She may have had difficulty learning about what the Brotherhood were up to all this time, but she'd learned plenty of other things.

The Lannisters and Freys had taken control of the Riverlands after the Red Wedding. The Freys were given the position of Lord Paramount as a reward for betraying Robb, but the people of the Riverlands hated them for it. The Blackfish, her own great-uncle Brynden Tully, had reformed the Tully army and retaken Riverrun, but then the Lannisters marched north and… There was a siege, and most people agreed the Blackfish could have held out for a long time… Only for some reason, Uncle Edmure had gone and yielded Riverrun to the Lannisters. The Blackfish was killed, but the Tully army surrendered. She supposed that was better than them all dying, and hopefully meant it could be reformed again.

But why had Uncle Edmure yielded the castle? He was supposed to be on _their_ side.

Some men called Edmure Tully a traitor for what he'd done, and Arya had to admit that her first reaction was anger and disgust as well. How could he have just let the Lannisters take the castle? Other people said he was just a broken man, after having his family slaughtered at his own wedding, and then being kept prisoner ever since.

Arya wasn't sure if she should consider Uncle Edmure a traitor or not though. She'd never even met him, so how was she supposed to know what he might or might not be capable of? If he was a traitor, perhaps he should be left in a cell to rot. If he wasn't, perhaps he should be rescued.

So was he a traitor? She needed more information.

She sat up and pulled an apple from her bag, eating it as she considered her next move.

Probably the best way to get information on Edmure Tully would be to get into a castle and listen to what was being said there. The lords and the castle servants would likely know more about what happened than the average person in the fields and taverns; the people she'd been listening to while trying to find out about the Brotherhood, because the Brotherhood prided itself on helping the smallfolk, not high lords.

She pulled out the map she'd stolen. Right now, she was on Bracken land. She could sneak into their castle, Stone Hedge… but the Brackens had yielded early, and then helped the Lannisters subdue other castles that tried to stay loyal to the Starks. She didn't really want to sneak into a castle held by cowards who'd yielded and then gone and helped the enemy.

Riverrun wasn't too far away. It was in enemy hands, but the men there might be more likely to discuss what had happened with Uncle Edmure, since it was the castle that Edmure had forced them to give up. But Riverrun was also the seat of the Lord Paramount, and so would be well guarded.

Not that she couldn't still get in, but it might be better to try a less important castle, since she was only intending to gather information at this stage. Besides, the enemy might say horrible things about Edmure Tully and call him a traitor even if he actually wasn't one. Lannisters and Freys were liars, after all.

Thanks to her time training with the faceless men, Arya knew how to tell when someone was lying, even if they were very good at it. But knowing someone was lying didn't mean she could get them to tell the truth.

No, it would be better if she could find a castle that was still loyal to the Starks and Tullys. Hopefully they'd have a more honest view on whatever had happened. Every castle and holdfast in the Riverlands had yielded by now, but…

According to the rumours she'd heard, the Blackwoods of Raventree Hall had been the very last castle to yield to the Lannisters. The last one still flying the Stark direwolf banner. They'd only yielded when there was no hope for them. When they literally couldn't hold out any longer.

Raventree Hall wasn't too far away either, and it was north of here, so if she decided to go on to the Twins afterwards… well, it was on the way, so to speak.

Decision made, she put the map away and gathered up her things.

She stole a horse and some supplies before starting out.

As she rode away from the recently restored village, the war torn lands became more apparent. She was used to the sight, so it didn't surprise her, but it was easy to see why people were so worried about how they'd survive the winter. Villages, holdfasts and fields had been burned and razed by the Lannister forces, leaving little behind but stone ruins and charred corpses. Stores of harvests from before the war had apparently been stolen or burned too, except for that which had been kept secure behind castle walls, or a few random granaries and mills that just happened to have been lucky enough to escape the raiding.

The farmers couldn't plant new crops until spring either. For now, there was still food available, but from what people had been saying, they feared that it wouldn't last. The castles might eventually stop supplying their settlements with stored grain and other supplies as winter worsened, and many smallfolk had no idea how they would survive if and when that happened.

Arya rode alone through the ruined land for several days. At night, she hunkered down beside whatever wall she could find, or camped out in the woods, if there was a woodland nearby.

On the fifth night there was a thunderstorm, and Arya shivered under her soaked cloak, huddling in the meagre shelter that was the best she could find that night.

She had to travel upstream to find a place that seemed safe enough to cross the Red Fork, the river swollen with the recent heavy rainfall, but eventually managed to find a bridge.

Not long after she cantered away on the north side of the river, it started to snow.

She kept going, and eventually reached Blackwood Vale.

She looked over the area from her place at the edge of the woods. The forest ended at the start of the valley, and the ground ahead of her was a bare expanse of half-frozen mud with a scattering of snow. She could see a small town and some more distant buildings in the valley, but the castle towered above everything else.

Raventree Hall was an old castle, with big square towers covered in moss. It wasn't as old as Winterfell, though, or as big. A moat encircled it, and hidden within the stone outer walls she could see a tall wooden keep.

Arya kicked her horse into a trot and approached the town cautiously. She found the local inn and paid for several days room and board. When she retired to her small room, she locked the door, carefully stowed Needle away and then collapsed on the bed, revelling in the luxury of a soft mattress and four walls to keep out the weather.

The next day, Arya began observing and listening to the people who came and went from the castle.

She quickly discovered that a group of servant girls from the castle liked to wander into the town almost every evening, and followed them. She learned their names, some facts about their lives, and the names, habits and personalities of the other people in the castle.

She discovered that another servant named Myra had recently left Raventree Hall to return home to her family, and hadn't yet been replaced. And that the castle Castellan and the Steward had gotten into a huge argument, though the servant girls weren't sure exactly what the argument was about. But as a result, the Steward and Castellan were not speaking to each other at the moment.

Arya had intended to use another face to get into Raventree Hall, but discovered to her frustration that she'd lost her bag of three carefully stored faces somewhere along the way. It had been tied to the saddlebags, but had evidently come loose at some point on the journey, and she hadn't noticed.

She could always get new faces, but to take another face, she'd need a fresh dead body, and she wasn't going to kill someone who didn't deserve it.

Well, if she didn't come across someone suitable, she'd just have to get into the castle wearing her own face instead.

Probably no one would recognise Arya Stark's face anyway.

She wanted to try and get into the castle without being noticed, as people would hopefully be less suspicious if she already appeared to have been allowed in. She'd looked for a weak point along the walls, but couldn't see an easy way in. The best way, it seemed, would be to simply sneak in through the main gate, but it was always well guarded.

Maybe she'd have to talk her way past the guards then.

One evening, a fierce, biting wind struck up while the servant girls were in the village, driving icy sleet into everyone's faces. Suddenly, everyone was hurrying from one place to another, avoiding being outside as much as possible.

It was too good an opportunity to miss, and Arya joined the back of the group as they returned to Raventree Hall. If anyone questioned her presence, she'd make up a story, telling them of how the Steward had just hired her, but she was new to the area and just happened to approach the castle at the same time as the other servants were returning.

Nobody questioned her though. The guards on the gates were squinting and averting their faces from the icy sleet and the wind, and didn't notice the extra girl at the back of the group.

She followed the servants across the yard to the servants' entrance, and only once they were inside and walking down the corridor did they realise Arya was there.

Of course, then they asked who she was and she told them her story. Taking inspiration from her direwolf, she introduced herself as Nym, short for Nymeria, the new servant girl. She explained how she'd been hired to fill the vacant position after someone named Myra left.

They shrugged, and one of them, a blonde girl named Lysa, showed 'Nym' to her new room in the servants' quarters, explaining that it was Myra's old room.

Arya thanked her, then went off in search of the Castellan and the Steward. She found the Steward first, and informed him that she'd been hired by the Castellan. Then she found the Castellan and told him that she'd been hired by the Steward.

She was told to be up early for work the next morning, and then allowed to return to her room to rest after her journey.

She had another wolf dream that night.

Nymeria and her pack had reached the land around the Twins.

She padded through the forest, following the smell of meat gone bad. She found the source easily enough, a dead body, hanging from some rope tied to a tree branch overhead.

She snarled silently. The meat was too rotten to eat, the stench foul, but part of her was pleased with the sight. It might mean she was getting closer to those she sought.

The pack moved through the forest, finding more hanged corpses, some fresher than others. She eventually found one that hadn't started to rot yet, and sniffed at the ground nearby, hoping to pick up the scent of other men. When she did, she lifted her head to the sky and howled in triumph, calling her pack.

They were getting closer.

Three wolves emerged from the woods, saw the hanging body, and moved towards it, sniffing. Then one of them snarled, leapt up, grabbed the leg of the body in his teeth and started stripping meat from it. The others followed.

She left them to it and followed the trail she'd picked up.

Eventually she heard the sound of men's voices up ahead, and crept forward, hiding in the bushes as she peered out at the scene in front of her.

There was a small campsite in a clearing. She saw three captives, bound and on their knees, surrounded by a ragged group of armed men. She recognised Thoros of Myr, and Lord Beric Dondarrion, as well as a couple of other men. But there were unfamiliar faces there as well.

She watched and listened from her hiding place as Beric Dondarrion questioned the captives, all three of whom were Freys, about their involvement in the Red Wedding. All three captives turned out to be guilty. One was angry, saying that Robb Stark betrayed the Freys and broke his promise, and deserved to die. The other two cried and pleaded for mercy, insisting that they were only doing as they'd been told, and although they had helped kill Robb's men, it hadn't been their idea.

Arya snarled silently, showing her teeth in the darkness. No one had showed Robb or Mother any mercy at the Red Wedding. Or Grey Wind, her brother's direwolf, or their men. Instead, the Freys had slaughtered them all at dinner and laughed about it. They even sewed Grey Wind's head onto Robb's body and paraded it around like a grotesque trophy.

Ropes were strung up from thick tree branches overhead, and the Freys were forced to stand on three cut tree stumps as nooses were pulled over their heads. The Freys pleaded. The Brotherhood ignored them. Then the tree stumps were kicked out from under them and the Freys died, their bodies twitching as they were strangled to death.

Unnoticed by any of them, the direwolf retreated from her hiding place and returned to her pack.

When Arya woke the next morning, she lay in bed for a while, thinking about what she'd learned. The Brotherhood really were helping to avenge Robb and their people. It made her think more kindly towards them. Maybe she should even consider taking Thoros and Beric off her list.

There were more important people still on her list that definitely needed to be killed though. Tywin Lannister, who had helped the Freys plan the Red Wedding, was already dead; killed by his own dwarf son while Tywin was sitting on the privy. Arya couldn't have come up with a better way for him to die.

But there was still Cersei, Ilyn Payne and the Mountain. All three of them would be in King's Landing… but she still needed to finish her business in the Riverlands first, which meant finding out what had really happened with Uncle Edmure, and deciding whether she should go and rescue him.

With that in mind, Arya got up and went to get instructions on her duties for today.

The next few days she spent cleaning. Scrubbing floors and washing clothes. Since she was mostly alone during that time, there wasn't much opportunity to listen to any important conversations. But she'd learned patience in Braavos, and so cleaned without complaint. And she paid careful attention whenever she was with the other servants, in case they had anything interesting to say. On the third day, she was tasked with mending a hole in someone's tunic. She didn't protest, but hoped that wouldn't become a regular part of her duties; she hated that sort of needlework.

One evening, she was sent to serve dinner to Lord Tytos Blackwood and his family.

This was the first time she'd actually seen any of the Blackwood family themselves. Lord Tytos Blackwood, the Lord of Raventree Hall, was a very tall, thin man with a hooked nose and black and grey beard. He had a cloak made of raven feathers, which he took off and handed to another servant, a man called Miles, when he entered the room.

When Lord Blackwood saw Arya, he blinked in shock, then narrowed his eyes at her for a minute. Studying her intently.

Arya froze.

Shit. Had he recognised her? If so, how? She knew she'd never met these people before.

And yet… looking back at the lord, she did feel a strange sense of recognition, but it was one she couldn't place.

She turned away and started ladling soup into bowls, trying to think of any time she might have met the Blackwoods before. Had they visited Winterfell once or something?

Perhaps she should have waited until she found another face she could use after all, but it was too late now.

But she was _sure_ she hadn't met them before, which made the weird sense of recognition even more confusing.

Lord Tytos' sons and daughter walked into the room, talking amongst themselves, and sat down at the table. Each of them briefly met Arya's gaze to thank her as she handed them their soup. Two of them, Alyn Blackwood and Edmund Blackwood, the younger sons, ignored her after that.

But when she met the gazes of both Brynden Blackwood, the eldest son and heir, and Bethany Blackwood, the youngest child and only daughter, Arya felt that same strange jolt of inexplicable recognition.

The two of them turned to stare at her as she moved to place the large bowl of soup on the counter at the side of the room, trying to act like nothing was wrong. She picked up a platter filled with bread, and started handing it out to the family.

Lord Blackwood remained standing, watching Arya suspiciously.

Arya continued to curse inwardly. When had she met these people before? The three of them that she recognised, Lord Tytos, Brynden and Bethany… she must have met them before, but when?

Brynden, a twenty-something man with the same dark eyes and straight black hair as his siblings, exchanged a look with his father.

"Who are you, girl?" Lord Blackwood finally asked her.

"Nym, m'lord," Arya said, curtseying as best she could while holding the bread platter. "Short for Nymeria, m'lord."

"I haven't seen you before."

"I was only hired recently m'lord. To replace Myra after she left. Is there something wrong?"

Lord Blackwood hesitated, then finally sat down at the table with his children. "No, child. Could you pour the wine?"

"Of course m'lord," Arya said, fetching the wine and doing as she'd been asked.

Lord Blackwood started talking to Brynden about matters to do with managing their lands.

Arya relaxed a little. Bethany was still staring at her, but then her brother nudged her and gave her a look, and Bethany looked away and started eating her bread.

Once the meal was over and the family had left Arya to clear up, she wondered if it would be best to leave this castle and go elsewhere to get the information she needed.

She heard footsteps and looked up to see that Bethany had returned to the dining hall. She stood in the doorway for a while, a slight girl of about three and ten.

"Is there something you need m'lady?" Arya asked.

Bethany didn't reply for a minute, just looked at her.

Arya went back to clearing up.

"I know what you are," Bethany Blackwood finally said.

Arya looked up, a confused frown on her face. "I'm sorry, m'lady?"

"I said, I know what you are."

"I know what I am too, m'lady. A loyal servant of your father's household." She curtseyed.

Bethany rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh. "I don't mean that. I meant, I know that you're a skinchanger."

That gave Arya pause. "I'm sorry, m'lady, but I don't know what you mean."

Bethany's eyes suddenly turned completely white.

Arya jumped back in shock.

A minute later, a raven flew through the corridor to land on Bethany's shoulder.

"You. Are," the raven said.

Bethany's eyes returned to normal. She stared at Arya as she lifted one hand to stroke the raven's feathers. "You are a skinchanger. I can tell. Because I'm one too. Skinchangers always recognise each other, Father says, unless their powers are completely dormant and unused. Father says I shouldn't talk about it to outsiders, but you're one of us, aren't you? I didn't even know there were any other skinchangers in the Riverlands. Where's your animal? What do you skinchange into?" She sounded a little excited.

"Nymeria," Arya whispered, thinking of her wolf dreams.

She remembered the stories Old Nan used to tell them. Skinchangers were supposed to be able to take the form of animals. Some stories said they could actually change their shapes and become the animal, other stories said that they could enter the minds of animals and control them. Which… now that she thought about it, well… it _did_ sound a bit like what Arya did in her wolf dreams, when she dreamed that she was Nymeria.

Was that what her wolf dreams were? Her mind unconsciously skinchanging into her direwolf while she slept?

"What's that?" Bethany asked.

"I… nothing m'lady," Arya replied, unsure of how to respond to this.

Bethany smiled. "Look," she said, lowering her voice. "I know that it's not something we're supposed to talk about, but I won't tell anyone, I promise. My father and my brother Brynden already know, because they're skinchangers too. But I've just never met another girl skinchanger. I swear by the old gods and the new that I won't tell anyone else."

Arya bit her lip. "Alright," she said slowly. Perhaps Bethany could explain more about what her wolf dreams meant. It didn't mean she had to reveal who she really was or anything.

Bethany practically skipped into the room, before turning to close the door. She sat down on one of the chairs at the table. "So, what do you skinchange into?"

"A wolf, m'lady. But only in my dreams," Arya said.

"Really? So you're a warg then. My family likes to skinchange into ravens. That way we can fly, see?"

Her eyes turned white again, and the raven on her shoulder took off and flew around the room. "Fly! Fly, fly, fly!" it called.

The raven landed on the table, where Arya had put the pile of plates, and hopped over to grab a sliver of uneaten bacon in its beak.

Bethany's eyes returned to normal again.

So… her eyes going white was a sign that the girl was skinchanging into the raven? More importantly, she was doing it while awake, consciously, which would be a pretty useful skill, if Arya could learn to do the same…

"You can… skinchange into the raven whenever you want to, m'lady?" Arya asked.

Bethany nodded. "Father says I need to practice to get it right, but that I can only do it secretly, because other people, people who aren't skinchangers, would react badly if they found out. It's fun though, so I don't mind practicing."

"Do you think you could teach me how?"

Bethany nodded. "We'll have to ask my father, because he's better at teaching this stuff. But I'd like to have a friend to talk to about this. Maybe he'll let you be my handmaiden?"

Arya smiled. "I'd be honoured, m'lady."

Bethany got up, opened the door and left the room.

Arya continued cleaning up the dinner table.

Lord Blackwood was not happy when he found out that his daughter had been discussing her skinchanging abilities with a servant.

"How many times have I told you to keep it a secret, Bethany?" he asked his daughter.

Bethany crossed her arms and raised her chin. "I am keeping it secret. From most people. But Nym is a skinchanger too, so it's not like we could keep it secret from her anyway, is it?"

"She has a point, Father," Brynden said, leaning back against a tapestry featuring ravens flying around a snow-covered woodland. Unlike his father, who looked tense and worried, Brynden seemed completely relaxed.

The four of them stood in Lord Blackwood's solar.

Lord Blackwood stood beside the fireplace.

Bethany stood by a pair of wide latticework wooden doors set with small panes of diamond shaped yellow glass. Those doors opened out onto a balcony overlooking the godswood, but right now they were closed.

Arya, or 'Nym', as she was pretending to be, stood beside the thick oak door that led to the rest of the castle. That door was closed as well. Lord Blackwood didn't want anyone overhearing the conversation, it seemed.

Lord Blackwood regarded Arya suspiciously. "Skinchanging is a gift only given to a few. And the only people I've ever heard to possess it are descendants of the First Men. They say that wildlings from beyond the Wall have it, on occasion, but in the Seven Kingdoms, the only skinchanger lines to survive the Andal invasion were those who were part of a powerful noble House. The North fought the Andals off, but they'd already had their own purge of skinchanger lines among the common people, after a warg king rose up from the smallfolk and tried to take over. So again, only skinchanger lines from powerful noble Houses survived. All of which makes me wonder… Who are you, Nymeria, to have this ability? You seem too well cultured and mannered to be a wildling, and daughters of noble Houses do not work as servants."

Sometimes they do, Arya didn't say.

Instead, she quickly made up an explanation. "My mother was born in the Riverlands, m'lord. A washer woman who worked in a tavern. She always loved stories though, so much so that she sometimes got noble lords to tell them to her instead of payment for their meals. Her favourite story was Nymeria and her ten thousand ships, so that's who she named me after. I never met my father though. Perhaps he was a wildling skinchanger. Or perhaps he was a noble lord with the blood of the First Men. All I knew of him was that Mother was upset by his leaving her. So she never spoke of him."

"I see," Lord Blackwood said with a frown.

"Please, Father," Bethany spoke up. "Let Nym be my handmaiden and have skinchanging lessons with us, please!"

Lord Blackwood's expression softened as he looked at his daughter.

Then he looked at Arya. "Is that what you want, Nymeria?"

"I'd be honoured m'lord," Arya said.

"Yet how do I know we can trust you with this?"

Arya shrugged. "Well, begging your pardon, m'lord, but it seems it's my secret too, is it not? If I'm also a skinchanger? And I really would like to learn. Honest."

The room was silent for a while as everyone looked to Lord Blackwood.

"Very well," he finally said. "You may attend my daughter as her new handmaiden. And attend the family skinchanging lessons," he replied. "But remember, Nymeria, you must never, ever speak of our abilities to anyone. I want you to swear, before the old gods and the new, that you will not reveal this family's secret."

Arya curtseyed. "Of course, m'lord. I won't betray your trust, I swear it by the old gods and the new."

Lord Blackwood nodded. "So be it."

Arya's duties changed after that. She was given a new room, next to Bethany's quarters, and was responsible for serving Bethany herself rather than the household in general.

Bethany was ecstatic to have a friend whom she didn't have to keep secrets from. Arya felt a little guilty, considering all the secrets she was hiding. But still… she could hardly tell them who she really was, could she? Yes, they'd fought for Robb, but then the war was lost, although they'd been the last castle to yield, they _had_ eventually yielded to the Lannisters. She couldn't take the risk of trusting them.

So instead, she would play the part of Nym the handmaiden, and learn all about skinchanging.

And hopefully she'd still be able to learn what happened to Uncle Edmure as well.

And maybe they'd tell her something about what was happening in the North too? The smallfolk she'd listened to over the last few months had been concerned with the Riverlands, and sometimes King's Landing, not the other regions of Westeros. But the lords would probably be more interested and better informed about other regions.

Maybe they'd even know something about what was happening at the Wall, where Jon was.


End file.
